


The Offer

by Josselin



Category: Captive Prince - S. U. Pacat
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-25
Updated: 2014-11-19
Packaged: 2018-02-22 14:27:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 19
Words: 24,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2510996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Josselin/pseuds/Josselin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Laurent says that when you tire of me he will offer for my contract," said Nicaise.</p><p>“Did he,” said the Regent.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Nicaise’s favorite moments were after. The Regent was kind, sometimes, afterwards, affectionate and good-humored. When he gave Nicaise gifts it was usually after, something decorative drawn from the drawer near to the bed and presented with a small but genuine smile.

But to reach the afterglow they had to make it to the bed first. This particular evening was one of what was becoming an increasingly frequent pattern of the Regent working late in his study and leaving Nicaise to amuse himself. 

Nicaise had Jehan help him with his paint, fixing it after the evening meal. Then he amused himself with cards for half of an hour before he left the game spread out on the table. Boredom led Nicaise to wander into the study and arrange himself like a cat at the foot of the Regent’s chair, leaning unobtrusively against his leg and angling to have his hair stroked.

The Regent made a noise when Nicaise came in. It wasn't precisely a welcoming noise, but it hadn’t been a dismissal, either, so Nicaise continued, and after he was patient long enough he finally felt the Regent’s hand rest on the crown of his head. He tipped his head down to disguise the triumphant smile, and waited again.

The royal study was decorated with dark woods, forest-green tapestry covering the walls, and a patterned wool rug between the stone of the floor and Nicaise’s knees. The Regent was seated in front of his desk, though sometimes he preferred to stand as he worked, and had a lectern positioned near to the window where he had good light in the morning even before the fire was lit.

It was another long wait. Even after the Regent had seemingly finished with his work, he made no move to retire from his study, leaning back in his chair and steepling his hands on his chest in contemplation. 

Nicaise shifted slightly to subtly draw his attention again. The Regent refocused his gaze on where Nicaise was seated, but still made no move to reach for him or to move.

“Oh Nicaise,” he said, finally, which cued Nicaise to look up. “What am I to do with you?”

Nicaise felt his blood run cold, but forced his face into a light smile. That was not the remark of a man who was contented with his lover. “I have some ideas,” he said, letting his gaze be suggestive.

The Regent laughed lightly, but Nicaise could feel the lack of interest in his eyes. When Nicaise was honest with himself, he could admit that he had felt it for some months, that he was playing a losing game. He hadn’t received any gifts since the season before and the jeweled music box; the year prior he had been gifted almost every month.

The subject of the Regent's waning interest had never been broached directly with Nicaise by anyone besides Prince Laurent and his tiresome gloating. This comment from the Regent himself was new, and it prompted Nicaise to a bold action of his own, as a poorly tamed horse startled by a loud noise might bolt in the courtyard.

“I was talking to Prince Laurent today,” said Nicaise. Laurent was a subject that was guaranteed to get the Regent’s attention; Nicaise used that knowledge sparingly.

The Regent’s face darkened; Laurent was something of a headache to him.

Nicaise watched this closely, but he might not have another opportunity to make this play, and he took it. “Laurent says that when you tire of me he will offer for my contract.”

He had known that would get the Regent’s attention, and it did, and he basked in the level gaze, finally all of the man’s interest centered on him again.

“Did he,” said the Regent.

If Nicaise wanted it to continue, it was better to pretend that so much attention did not interest him, and Nicaise turned his head toward the floor again, as though staring at the Regent’s boot were very interesting.

“And what do you think of my nephew?” the Regent said.

That was a dangerous question. “You have spoken many times of the trouble he causes you,” said Nicaise.

“Does he fancy you?” said the Regent. “Has he spoken of his interest?”

Nicaise ventured a look upwards through his eyelashes. “I suppose I shall know of his interest if he makes an offer.”

The Regent didn’t respond to that directly, and spent a long moment staring out the window toward the gardens in the evening. Laurent might be out in those gardens right now, parading his ugly slave around behind him.

“Nicaise, can you do something for me?” said the Regent finally, looking intently now again at Nicaise and his position at the foot of the chair.

“Of course,” Nicaise murmured, thinking that finally they were going to retire to the bedchamber.

“It will require subtlety and discretion,” said the Regent. “If you were successful I should see you amply rewarded.”

“When I am successful,” Nicaise corrected, rubbing his face against the Regent’s calf. “What is it?”

And the Regent explained.


	2. Chapter 2

Laurent stood in precisely the center of Damen’s cell just as he stood in the center of Damen’s current predicament, somehow simultaneously the cause of half of Damen’s problems and the only hope that Damen had to not die an old man forgotten in a Veretian dungeon.

The rectangle of light that entered through the unbolted window on Damen’s cell aligned exactly with the edge of one of the stone tiles in the floor, as though the light were another stone placed into position by the mason. Laurent shifted his weight from where he stood, regarding Damen, and his boot moved over the line of the light and the stone. If Damen’s eyes followed Laurent’s boot up his calf he could see that Laurent was dressed simply – for a Veretian – in leather trousers for riding. Damen thought it wiser to keep his eyes respectfully downcast. Laurent was close enough that Damen could have touched him without even straining the limits of the chain, but Damen made no attempt to move that direction.

Laurent moved from his position of observation and spoke to the guards outside Damen’s cell, and the two men left after a brief exchange. Damen could hear their footfalls echo down the hallway. Laurent entered the cell again. Damen raised his eyes briefly and he could see that Laurent was holding a key.

The key fit smoothly into the lock on the chain keeping Damen tethered to the floor, and once Laurent had unfastened the chain he let it drop from his hand to the floor with a clang. Damen waited for someone – perhaps Radel – to come running at the noise. Nothing happened.

“Stand up,” said Laurent.

Damen did, slowly, feeling the stretch of his muscles and the caution in his nerves.

“You see we are alone,” said Laurent. “Let us be clear about your loyalties.” He produced a knife from his belt and placed it into Damen’s right hand. Damen’s fingers closed around the hilt of the knife reflexively.

“My loyalty is to Akielos.”

Sunlight glinted on the knife's blade and reflected onto the stone floor.

Nothing else in the cell moved, until the silk tunic Laurent wore stirred under his breath. Damen's eyes traced the intricate embroidery of blue and white threads. The knife was light and well-made. The hilt fit comfortably into his hand.

"This is a test," Damen said.

"Yes," said Laurent.

Damen itched to interrupt Laurent’s opaque confidence. He took a step closer to Laurent. Laurent didn’t flinch.

Damen turned the blade slightly, exposing the edge between them. He grasped the blade in his hand and held the handle out to Laurent.

“You serve me,” said Laurent, and his tone was something in between a statement and a proposal. “In the same manner you would have respected any of your past commanders. And when I am king, we will let things fall out between us as they will.”

Damen considered the offer. He still had a knife in his hand. He had bargained with Laurent for the well being of the Akielon slaves, and Laurent had delivered. If he did not agree to serve Laurent he was going to rot in this room, and be forced to cater to Laurent’s whims anyway.

Damen nodded.

Laurent turned his head from side to side taking in the cell, then seemingly dismissing it from his concern. “Come with me,” he said.

“Where are we going?” said Damen.

“We’re going to have to work on this talkative streak of yours,” said Laurent.

 

Laurent arranged for Damen to be moved into Laurent’s own apartments, where, Laurent explained, Damen was to act as a bodyguard. This decision to set up his enemy as his guard was less surprising, somehow, than the fact that Laurent permitted Damen to keep the knife he had given him in the cell.

“You’re not going to give me a sword, as well?” said Damen.

“It would strain credulity,” said Laurent. Damen was uncertain as to what part of Laurent's new plan to present Damen as his lover while using Damen as his bodyguard did not strain credulity, but the modicum of freedom afforded by this new position and the knife were such advantages over being chained to the cell that he remained silent.

Laurent proceeded with his own business as though Damen’s presence in the same room was no more of a threat than the furniture. He sat down at a table and paged through correspondence.

Damen inspected the exits of the room.

The main door was heavy and decorated with bronze. Jord and another guard Damen didn’t know the name of had saluted as they entered; so there were clear defenses in that direction. The arches that overlooked the gardens were open to the air at the moment. There were iron-wrought doors with glass panes that could be shut to keep cooler air out in less temperate weather. Damen manipulated one of them on the hinges to determine how sturdy they were and was surprised by the heft.

The drop off the balcony was steep -- Damen had no wish to test it himself. So the balcony as an escape route would beg for either a rope or circumstances that were truly of last resort. The protrudence of the balcony over the wall below made intruders from the balcony unlikely, though the rooms were only on the third floor and over the garden, which was not an area secured by Laurent’s guards. There was a jut of the palace wall off to the east that offered a clear shot into Laurent’s rooms for a skilled archer.

Laurent did not seem to invite observation. Damen took a position near the iron-grilled balcony doors that allowed him to observe the afternoon in the gardens without being spied by those below. The gardens were not that interesting, but in comparison to the view of the sunlight traveling across the stone tiles of the cell he’d been kept in, it was fascinating. Damen watched gardeners tending to the greens and flowers, several of the Regent’s guards walk through on what might have been a break or an assignation.

As the light faded, servants came through the gardens to light torches. Damen heard Laurent rise from his table and walk across the room; he approached Damen’s position. Damen noted that Laurent didn’t move close enough to the garden exposure that he would be vulnerable to archers on the opposite wall.

“Are you a lady’s cat, who watches out the window at mice he is not permitted to chase?” said Laurent.

Damen turned his head from the gardens being lit by torches toward Laurent. “Nicaise met earlier this afternoon with a woman with brown hair; she dressed like a noble.”

Laurent’s eyes flicked away from the gardens to Damen. He had a considering expression. Whatever response he might have made was interrupted by Jord announcing the arrival of Laurent’s evening meal.

The servants spread Laurent’s meal out on a small table. Damen was not invited to join and didn’t presume, remaining over by the view of the gardens.

Laurent returned to his papers after eating. There was enough food for three men left on the table. Damen waited a for several long moments, and then he approached the table himself. He kept his eyes from Laurent as he sat down and began to eat; Laurent said nothing.

The new patterns of their cohabitation formed. They existed quietly in each other’s space. Damen tried to be unobtrusive and observant, watching the routines of the palace and the servants, noticing Laurent’s actions.

Laurent rose early in the day and left his chambers for several hours, returning damp from the baths. Damen speculated within the confines of his own head that Laurent was visiting a lover, though he had met no one in the court who seemed to claim that role. Perhaps a courtesan or someone unsuitable to be acknowledged. Laurent spent his midday meal and afternoon hours in quiet meetings with other court members, speaking with landholders and courtiers in alcoves of the library or secluded corners of the garden. Damen was often taken along and treated as an interesting piece of furniture, worth a comment but not any further notice. Damen was certain that Laurent’s meetings were all part of some greater plan, but he could not follow the currents of it from Laurent’s conversation. In the evenings Laurent retired quietly to his chambers and ignored Damen while he worked on his correspondence.

Several days into their new arrangement, Laurent spoke to Damen upon his return from the baths in the morning. “If he has not already, my uncle is going to find some excuse to speak with you.”

“About you,” said Damen.

“He will wonder if your change in status represents a change in heart in regard to his proposal.” Laurent was sorting through clothing in his own dressing room; his voice floated out to Damen in the main room through the door.

“When he suggested that I bed you and report back to him,” said Damen.

“It would be helpful,” said Laurent, emerging from the dressing room with a light colored linen shirt, “if this opened a channel for dissemination of information that I could use to my advantage.”

“I understand,” said Damen. He expected that further instruction might follow, but Laurent seemed to consider the discussion dispensed with.


	3. Chapter 3

The Regent selected his moment with Damen several days later. Damen had been abandoned in the gardens while Laurent indulged a courtier with a more private discussion, and Laurent’s uncle seemed to happen upon Damen’s place. Damen suspected that it was less of an accidental discovery than it was intended to seem.

“My nephew has moved you into his rooms,” said the Regent. It was not a question, though it somehow seemed to invite response.

“Yes, highness,” said Damen. He kept his tone quiet and his eyes focused on the ground. This was a battleground of words and it was a type of fighting he had no training for.

“He must have taken a fancy to you,” said the Regent.

“The prince’s reasons are his own,” said Damen. He could see a small lizard hiding behind a bush near the Regent’s feet.

“He does not confide in you.”

Damen risked a momentary glance upward to see the Regent’s expression, which was calm and grave. “He seems to take pains to confuse me,” said Damen. “If he shares confidences I have no faith in their veracity.”

The Regent nodded seriously.

Laurent and the courtier he had departed with emerged from a turn on the garden path. Nephew and uncle exchanged cool greetings before Laurent peremptorily took Damen’s leash again and led him back to Laurent's chambers.

Laurent’s manservant was dismissed, and Damen was instructed to repeat the entire conversation over, three times.

“You are certain,” said Laurent, reclined on a chair with his feet tucked under him in a way that made him look oddly young.

“It was hardly a lengthy monologue,” said Damen.

Laurent gave him a look, as though contemplating whether he would tolerate that degree of insolence from Damen.

“I am certain,” said Damen. “Those were the exact words.”

“All right,” said Laurent. There was an extended moment of silence which Damen had come to recognize as Laurent being thoughtful. It was as a large hunting cat; they were most still and dangerous in the moments before they pounced.

Damen was just starting to wonder if he had been dismissed without the use of words when Laurent spoke again.

“Next time,” said Laurent, “consider intimating that you think I enjoy watching you suffer.”

 

The next time did not follow shortly upon the first.

The following week Damen was leashed again and taken with Laurent to a formal dinner. Formal meals consisted of multiple courses and lasted for hours in Vere. Each course was separately presented by servants and Veretian fastidiousness required that it be served on separate dishes, so there were other servants who simply came to clear out each layer of porcelain after it was touched with food.

As a pet, Damen was not given his own place setting, but was allocated a portion of bench next to Laurent’s chair on which to sit, and he had a clear view of the proceedings.

Damen noted that Nicaise was not at the table.

The meal began with one of the servants coming around with a bowl of water scented with lavender and a towel, and the guests were invited to wash their hands prior to eating. Platters were brought out of delicately cut fine bread. The first course was roasted hen served with a sauce of sage and garlic. One of the chefs emerged from the kitchen to present a platter of artfully arranged hen to the Regent. He gave an approving nod, and the platter was retrieved to be taken to the cutting table. The carver did his work, and then the hen was moved onto another platter for serving once sliced into pieces.

There were fifty people in the feasting hall. Twenty guests at the feast, all Veretians except for Vannes. Amongst the twenty guests were twelve pets eating with them. The rest of the hall was filled with the representatives of the Regent’s Guard, the Prince’s Guard, and the army of servants that came and went from the kitchen.

Laurent had told Damen once that his uncle liked to combine business and pleasure. It was not until the dessert course that topics of political importance began to be discussed at the table. The Regent was considering inviting an Akielon diplomatic delegation to Vere.

Councilor Jeurre was one of those men whose emotions shone clearly on his face; he was a man out of place in Vere. But upon the Regent’s quiet comment as to what he was thinking Jeurre looked up, startled, from his dessert. He was not the only dinner guest to sit up slightly straighter, pause a side conversation, or otherwise become more attentive to the discussion. 

Next to Damen, Laurent made no indication he had heard the comment at all, and was carefully inspecting his dessert, as though the way liquor had been drizzled over the pastry and candied fruit were not completely to his satisfaction.

“Is that wise?” said Jeurre, speaking without caution.

The Regent raised an eyebrow mildly at Jeurre. “We have a treaty, do we not?”

“But—" said Jeurre, his eyes flicking back and forth between the Regent and Laurent with no subtlety.

One of the court ladies whose name Damen did not know decided to attempt to rescue Jeurre. “Your grace,” she said, addressing Laurent, “What do you think of a visiting Akielon delegation?”

Laurent finished swallowing his bite of candied pear carefully before replying. “I have no love for Akielos.”

Jeurre was not wise enough to appreciate the turn of attention away from his ill-advised questioning. “Your grace,” he said, looking directly at Laurent now, “what would you do, if there were an Akielon delegation visiting, and the Akielon prince stood in front of you?”

Laurent’s fingers rested elegantly on the tiny crystal used to serve dessert wine.

“Jeurre,” he said, “You have had too much to drink.” 

Damen was not accustomed to eating with enemies, nor to being armed at a meal. Damen’s grandfather, who had ruled the kyroi during a period of great unrest and infighting, had insisted strongly upon a principle that when a man sat down to eat with another man, that they were friends, and that weapons in such a circumstance were the sign of a traitor. Yet Damen wished that there had been a way to obscure the knife Laurent let him keep in the silken wisp of a costume that Radel insisted he wear to a formal dinner.

Jeurre was blushing red, either from Laurent’s comment or the drink that had prompted it, and he settled back into his chair.

The Regent was now focusing his attention on Laurent, though. Laurent seemed as unaffected by that as he had been by the start of the conversation. The Regent spoke. “Nephew, what is it that you would do, if the Akielon prince were here in front of you?”

Damen could feel his fingers dig tightly into the cushion that he was seated on, and he forced himself to relax outwardly.

Everyone’s attention had turned to Laurent, now, and Laurent bore it comfortably, tapping one finger against the stem of his dessert wine glass again. There did not seem to be much question amongst the guests as the to the nature of Laurent’s action in that circumstance, but the guests seemed to have varying expectations of Laurent’s reply that Damen could read on their faces, expecting either wit, or brevity, or gore.

Laurent addressed his uncle directly with the reply. “If I had in front of me the Akielon prince,” said Laurent, his voice perfectly calm, “I would take my time.”

And then Laurent turned his attention to Damen, sitting next to him, and Damen could feel the rest of the court’s attention follow. In an uncharacteristic move Laurent rested his left hand on Damen’s right shoulder, and he said, in a voice with a private tone but loud enough to carry around the table, “Would you like some pear?” and held out a forkful of candied pear to Damen’s face.


	4. Chapter 4

The taste of the pear lingered in Damen’s mouth for the rest of the evening. The event continued well after dark, having moved from the dining hall to the gardens, where the night was punctuated with soft music.

Laurent had stationed Damen near the front of the gardens by virtue of attaching his leash to a stand there, and Damen was not oblivious to the fact that Laurent had selected the position in the gardens that gave Damen the greatest visibility of those who entered and those who departed. Damen suspected that Laurent was also not oblivious to this aspect of the arrangement, and he kept his eyes open and a list in his head of careful observations as the evening progressed. He kept an eye on Laurent, as well, who was flitting about the garden from one group of guests to another, going on a walk through flower beds with one courtier before taking another over to a bench by the willow tree for a secluded conversation.

There were sexual – Damen supposed the Veretians would call them performances – going on throughout the garden, pets demonstrating their skills on their masters or another favored guest or with another pet. But Damen found his eyes returning over and over again to Laurent himself, and twice when he was regarding Laurent from across the garden as he kept watch, he found that Laurent looked up and met his eyes across the space.

One of the Regent’s Guard came to fetch Damen late in the evening, and Damen hoped that Laurent saw them depart from across the garden as he allowed himself to be led away to a private meeting. 

Damen was led to a visiting chamber and gestured to be seated on a delicately embroidered sofa as though he were a guest and not a slave and a spy. Laurent’s uncle emerged after a moment and took in Damen with a gaze.

“Your incidence of self-inflicted bruising seems to have decreased. I’m glad to see it.” The Regent leaned in slightly toward Damen. “So either my nephew has taken a lesson of respect and decency to heart or he has become more subtle with his pleasures.”

Damen remained silent. The rug in the room had an embroidered scene of a woman and a servant helping her with a veil. The veil was the same shade of blue as Laurent’s eyes. The Regent’s eyes were the same color.

“Which is it?” said the Regent, after a long moment.

“Your grace puts me in a difficult position,” said Damen.

The Regent nodded slowly at that, as though it were a real answer to his question.

“What other pleasures does my nephew enjoy?”

“He lives austerely, your grace,” said Damen.

The Regent stroked his beard. He waited a moment and then took out a sheet of parchment and a quill and wrote for a moment. He handed the parchment to Damen when he had sanded it.

It read:

_My nephew might question you about our discussion. You might wish to say to him honestly that you have recounted everything we have spoken. If you wish to share me something more, you may write it here._

Damen stood, and took a step closer to the desk with the sheet of parchment. He held out his hand for the quill, and then wrote, quickly, in Veretian:

_How should I contact you?_

The Regent read over his response avidly as he wrote it, stroked his beard again.

Their time in the study was interrupted by the opening of the door. 

Nicaise entered the room. He was dressed casually; he had not been at the dinner festivities. Damen caught sight of his face as he came in. Nicaise was not expecting to find the room populated. His expression changed as he realized they were in the room, and he looked from Damen to the Regent and back again. Nicaise took one step backward, and for a moment Damen thought he was going to retreat back out of the room. Then he seemed to take hold of himself, stood up straighter, and said, “I came for—" and gestured toward something sitting on a shelf. 

The Regent nodded at Nicaise, who crossed the room in front of Damen, walking across the rug with the two women standing on it. He was barefooted. He took up a small wooden box with two hands, wrapping his fingers around the handles of it on either side, and then crossed back out of the room with the box without further acknowledgement of either of them.

Damen watched as Nicaise left the room and shut the door behind himself.

The Regent looked down at the piece of parchment again, and then back up at Damen himself. The Regent said to Damen, “I will send for you,” and his words were a dismissal.

 


	5. Chapter 5

Damen was not sent for right away, because the entire court seemed suddenly interrupted by an immense drama involving Nicaise.

The specifics of the drama varied depending on which member of the court was sharing excited gossip with Laurent. Damen had heard four different members of the court swear that their version of the story was the truth, and so apparently:

First, Nicaise had wished a gift and been denied -- one account said the gift was a ruby, another, a bolt of fine silks.

Second, Nicaise had locked his doors to the Regent.

Third, the Regent was evicting Nicaise -- and in a variant of this account, doing so to move in a new resident to the rooms traditionally reserved for a royal pet.

Fourth, Nicaise had been caught in a rendezvous with a woman, and of course this was a very great scandal.

Damen knew enough of the Veretian court by this time to see that there was clearly a lot of politics involved in Laurent buying out Nicaise’s contract. This process seemed to involve both clandestine negotiations as well as an auction that seemed to forgo the usual trappings of Veretian luxury and opulence and reminded Damen of nothing more than a cattle market.

The auction had the side consequence of prompting Laurent’s disinheritance, for reasons that Damen did not entirely follow and Laurent was not inclined to be questioned about. Damen was able to gather from a discussion between Jord and Orlant that the Regent’s action there was surprising even to those familiar with Veretian politics, and stirring some contention amongst the court, as apparently not all members of the council felt that his reasons were justified.

Reasons or not, the edict had gone into effect, and Laurent’s income had been curbed to a pittance.

The bidding on Nicaise, while competitive, did not seem to determine the outcome of his future placement. When Damen commented on the strangeness of this to Orlant, Orlant gave him an odd look and said that of course a pet could select his own patron. So Damen gathered that the bidding was only one factor in a decision that ultimately fell back to Nicaise himself.

That explained why Nicaise ended up with Laurent despite Laurent’s newly impoverished state. After all, Laurent had been kind to Nicaise, in a way, or thinking about it in another light, Laurent’s title offered some hope of future ambition even despite his current circumstances.

With Laurent’s victory, Nicaise was also moved into Laurent’s chambers. Damen and Laurent had seemed to find a pattern over the previous several weeks that permitted the two of them to share space without much notice of the other -- at least, Laurent seemed to take little notice of Damen, and Damen attempted to observe Laurent closely while remaining as unobtrusive as possible. Nicaise’s introduction to the room was not nearly so quiet.

Nicaise made his distaste for Damen clear, both to Laurent and to Damen himself, but yet he did not leave Damen to his own devices. He was one of those boys who would rather sit next to someone he hates than be left alone. Nicaise filled his days with small insults, listings of Damen’s deficiencies, speculation on Akielos that was little based in fact and sometimes quite amusing, and also quite accurate impressions of many of the other members of the court, including Laurent and his uncle.

Laurent often took Damen with him when leaving his rooms, as an odd type of bodyguard, Damen’s knife carefully concealed in whatever silks Radel determined were appropriate for the occasion. Nicaise was not so welcome in the rest of the court yet, and had to remain confined to Laurent’s rooms, and was not tolerating this well.

The two of them were there together one afternoon when Laurent left to meet alone with the Patran delegation. Damen had maintained as much of an exercise regimen as he could when kept in his cell, stretching and strengthening as much as he could given the chain fastened to the floor and the injuries to his back. In the greater freedom of not being chained in Laurent’s rooms, he tried to keep an even more extensive routine.

Nicaise ignored the expansiveness of the rooms to pull up a stool right across from where Damen was stretching to stare at him, so Damen felt he was entitled to stare in return. Nicaise was casually dressed and not painted.

Damen switched from stretching his right leg to his left, and thought to himself -- why did Laurent offer for Nicaise? He did not know and could not tell whether Laurent was doing so out of some larger scheme, or because he felt a moral imperative to provide for Nicaise.

Nicaise did not act like Laurent had rescued him, more that Laurent was failing to live up to his expectations in all regards. Or did Laurent have his own interest in Nicaise? Did he have the same tastes as his uncle? Damen switched from stretches to the traditional warrior poses and regarded Nicaise and wondered what the appeal was.

During the second pose, Damen’s musings were interrupted with a reflection of the same thoughts. Nicaise sat up with better posture suddenly and said, “Does he fuck you?”

Damen smiled slightly as he moved into the third pose. “I was just thinking that.”

“Why?” said Nicaise, as though Damen had not spoken. “Your skin is dark and scarred and your hands are not soft. You have no jewels and your face paint is ridiculous.”

“Where were you born?” said Damen, wondering what type of background a boy had that led to the position Nicaise now had at the court.

“What are you doing?” said Nicaise. “This is a very unattractive dance. Perhaps he fucks you because you are ugly.”

“It is not a dance,” said Damen, holding the fifth pose for an extended moment because it was his least favorite of the positions and that was the habit of his discipline. “It is a pattern of training for young men in Akielos who wish to be soldiers.” Damen stepped out of the routine for a moment to look again at Nicaise and his insouciant position on an upholstered stool. “Would you like to learn?”

Nicaise sniffed.

Damen began the series again. “I suppose you are rather old to begin training.” Nicaise’s eyes narrowed and Damen suppressed a smile. Nicaise might only be a child but he was vicious enough that Damen was not above poking him in a vulnerable spot. “Most Akielon boys begin training at about half your age.”

Nicaise rose off of his stool. “If you think your hideous dance presents a challenge for me, you are mistaken.”

Damen decided to ignore Nicaise’s words, and began with the first pose again, speaking as he went through the poses again, explaining each one as he moved through it. He was accustomed to narrating the poses with instruction – it was traditional that Akielons did the routine in groups, and that the highest ranked participant would lead, setting the pace, explaining to the boys who were new to the forms, and offering advice to the others on how they might improve. He had never before attempted to lead to poses while speaking Veretian, though.

Nicaise was impressively skilled for one who had never learned the forms before, and when Laurent returned Damen was demonstrating the fifth form again and unfortunately being forced to acknowledge to himself that Nicaise’s slim limbs might simply be better suited to it than Damen’s own figure.

Laurent took in their exercise in the corner of the room. He seemed for a moment as though he might say something, and then he turned his head away, and then he turned back again. “You can use my practice room.”

Nicaise lost interest in Damen and his ugly dance with the appearance of Laurent, and abandoned Damen to complete the forms himself while he trailed after Laurent, instead, speaking to Laurent about people and happenings that Damen was not familiar with.


	6. Chapter 6

Laurent was, Damen thought, remarkably tolerant of Nicaise. He permitted Nicaise to chatter at him while he performed other work; he occasionally demonstrated that he was listening by returning a sly comment or barbed remark, which Nicaise reacted to with a delighted smile. He had not made any sexual overtures toward Nicaise that Damen had seen – and Damen was uncertain what he would do if he did observe something of that nature – but he permitted Nicaise to perch on the arm of his chair and look over his shoulder, or to lounge on a settee near his desk while he wrote correspondence.

It was surprising to Damen, therefore, when Laurent seemed to finally lose his patience with Nicaise, that it was over something so minor.

Laurent was reading a book. Nicaise was sharing his chair, ostensibly reading along with him, but he seemed more occupied with braiding a small section of Laurent’s hair and asking him distracting questions that Laurent was ignoring. Damen himself was in what had become his own usual position, watching out the balcony doors over the garden. He divided his attention between things happening below and the drama unfolding within the same room.

Nicaise did not like to be ignored, and responded by repeating Laurent’s name. “Laurent,” he said. Laurent’s eyes flicked up from the book warningly and then returned to his reading. “Laurent,” said Nicaise again. He began to draw out the syllables on his tongue, as though saying Laurent’s name were more an exercise in framing the words than in getting Laurent’s attention. “Laurent. Laurent.”

Laurent’s gaze remained stubbornly on his book, but Damen could see his annoyance with Nicaise in the set of his shoulders.

“Laurent,” said Nicaise.

“Stop,” said Laurent.

Nicaise twisted his mouth briefly in a smile of victory at this reaction. “Laurent,” he said.

“No,” said Laurent, standing up with the resulting effect of unbalancing Nicaise and causing him to have to clutch at the back of the chair.

Laurent seemed unsure of what he wished to do now that he was standing. Nicaise seemed pleased with what had unfolded, and caught sight of Damen watching the two of them from the edge of the room with a puzzled expression.

Nicaise nodded toward Damen to direct Laurent’s attention. “He doesn’t know,” Nicaise said delightedly, giving a slight laugh.

Laurent seemed disinclined to enlighten Damen as to whatever it was that he did not know, and retreated to his bedroom, closing the door behind him. Nicaise watched him go, and then looked back at Damen.

Damen returned his gaze for a moment before looking out at the gardens, unwilling to give Nicaise the satisfaction of asking.

Nicaise decided to tell him anyway, as he flounced off to follow Laurent into the bedroom. “Royal second sons are always named Laurent,” Nicaise announced. “Think about it.”

 

Laurent’s negotiation with the Patrans continued the following day, and Damen insisted that Nicaise show him where the practice room was. Nicaise complained about this as a child might fuss about being awoken too early from a nap.

The practice room reserved for Laurent’s private use was small, which did not really surprise Damen, knowing what he did about Laurent’s personality and current circumstances.

The fact that the room looked to be used regularly was a surprise. Laurent might offer the use of it to his guards as well as his pets, Damen thought wryly.

No one interrupted them as they went through the entire set of poses. Nicaise was more reserved in the practice room than he was in Laurent’s quarters, or he was quieter in the morning than he was at the end of the day. He was graceful and moved easily. Most Akielon boys had known the forms for many years by Nicaise’s age, but Nicaise might have drawn attention even amongst his own age group for the careful precision of his movements. He controlled his own body with an air that spoke of someone older than he was.

That afternoon Damen accompanied Laurent to an entertainment in the garden. The premise of the entertainment seemed to be that the Veretian nobility wore feathered masks around their eyes, and then pretended that this somehow interfered with their ability to know to whom they were speaking, and that the anonymity was liberating.

Damen was not given a mask, though he saw that some of the pets were wearing them, dripping with gaudy jewels. He watched, at first, as Laurent – wearing a mask with a peacock feather – made his rounds of the garden, speaking in particular to the Patran delegation. But early in the event Damen was summoned by one of the Regent’s men, and he allowed himself to be led again to the Regent’s study.

He was seated on the same embroidered sofa in front of the same rug of the lady with a veil.

The Regent entered after a moment. “Have you been replaced?” he began, abruptly.

Damen was slower to answer. “I do not believe that Prince Laurent has replaced me,” he said.

“He makes a fool of himself in a public auction for another pet and you think you are still his favorite?” said the Regent.

“I think the prince’s reasons for buying Nicaise’s contract are different than the reasons he keeps me,” said Damen.

The Regent smiled. There was something in his face of the same expression that Nicaise had worn the night before when his needling of Laurent had been successful.

“This was a test,” said Damen.

“Yes. I can guess very well my nephew’s reasons for allying with Nicaise, and you are correct that they have nothing to do with you.” The Regent drummed a hand on the desk in front of him. “What else have you learned?”

Damen shrugged. “I can tell you of his daily habits and of the view from his balcony.”

“Why is he meeting with the Patrans?” said the Regent.

“I overheard him telling Lady Vannes that he thinks they are too friendly with the Akielons.” Damen in fact suspected that Laurent had had that conversation with Vannes in front of Damen for this particular reason.

The Regent stroked his beard, considering, and Damen was dismissed.

Laurent reappeared shortly after Damen was returned to the entertainments, and started to lead him away from the gardens and back toward his own rooms before stopping to consider something to himself. He lead Damen deeper into the gardens, instead, down by the small pond and bridge, where during evening parties lovers often slipped to be alone.

“We are slipping away for a romantic moment,” said Laurent. “Behave accordingly.”

Damen managed to suppress his instinct to raise a skeptical eyebrow. “You don’t want my report to be overheard by Nicaise.”

“Sit here next to me,” directed Laurent, positioning them on the low branch of a willow tree, himself facing out toward the rest of the garden and Damen facing the other direction toward the lake, probably because Laurent trusted himself to control his expression more than he did Damen. Laurent’s expression was the benevolent one Damen sometimes saw him wear with courtiers who he found vaguely amusing. “Tell me what he asked you.”

Damen dutifully repeated the conversation.

As Damen finished, another couple on a walk through the garden came near their spot, and Laurent leaned in closer toward Damen while they departed. Damen could feel Laurent’s breath on his cheek, the wind was blowing Laurent’s hair against his neck.

The other revelers followed the garden path back toward the palace, and Laurent leaned away again, thinking.

“Why do you not want Nicaise to overhear?” said Damen.

Laurent canted his head to the side, thoughtfully, looking at Damen. “He reports to my uncle,” said Laurent.

Damen blinked. “You live with two spies.”

Laurent leaned in with a smile, it took Damen a moment to realize that someone must be approaching on the path again.

“You are starting to learn what Vere is like,” said Laurent, in a tone that was more appropriate to a lover’s secret.


	7. Chapter 7

The following week Damen and Nicaise were left even more to their own devices, and Damen let their calisthenics become more elaborate as they reviewed the Akielon forms in the privacy of Laurent’s personal practice room. The practice room was circular and windowless, with wooden floors and wooden paneling lining the walls. The walls were set with pegs, and sets of practice weaponry adorned the walls. Damen had made mental notes of some of the items that might make reasonable actual weapons if he were ever to try to escape and find himself in need.

Damen taught Nicaise the basic moves of self defense, such as how to release his wrist from another’s grasp, to elbow someone standing behind him in a restraining grip. Toward the middle of the week Nicaise tired of simply echoing Damen in the Akielon forms, and began to show off moves of his own, trying to find contorted dance positions that Damen was not flexible enough to hold. Nicaise was athletic in a way that reminded Damen of Ancel’s fire dance in the ring; Damen wondered if they had similar training.

Nicaise was far more suited to any type of stretching than Damen was, and after a few moments of showing off his flexibility he lost interest because of the sheer inequity of any type of challenge. Nicaise could stand on a step and reach his hands to the step below without straining his hamstrings, he could balance on one leg and extend the other elegantly up behind him. Damen appreciated grace in athleticism, but he wasn’t especially suited to it personally, and it had never been the focus of his own training. Nicaise was not satisfied with Damen’s praise, though, he sought competition.

So that led to even greater creativity.

“I bet you can’t walk across the ring on your hands,” said Nicaise, standing on the thin wooden railing of the practice ring in an impressive show of flexibility.

Damen eyed the distance. “I could do that,” he said.

Nicaise raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Bet you can’t.” Nicaise demonstrated his own proficiency balancing on his hands by hopping off of the railing and then tipping himself forward to balance on his own hands and take a few steps.

His light frame gave him an advantage, but Damen had years of swordsmanship to build his shoulders. “I can do it,” said Damen, and when Nicaise fell gracefully to one side, Damen demonstrated his own skills, shifting his weight carefully to move one hand and then another across the sandy wooden practice floor. He walked on his hands from the entrance of the ring to the opposite side, and then, to avoid any accusations from Nicaise of cheating – those were frequent, in Damen’s experience – he walked back to the other side of the ring and let his feet fall down again at the entrance.

Nicaise was not gracious in defeat. Damen rolled his wrists to stretch them. “I could spot you,” he offered to Nicaise, which earned him only a furious glare in response, and Nicaise retreated from the practice ring and back to Laurent’s chambers.

Damen spent the afternoon observing the visitors to the gardens over Laurent’s balcony, and by the evening Laurent had returned from yet another meeting with Torveld, and Damen had forgotten their bet from the morning entirely until Nicaise slapped his hand down on a small decorative table next to where Damen was sitting. His hand made a metallic noise when it hit the ceramic top to the table, so Damen looked down, and when Nicaise lifted his hand there was a jeweled ruby earring sitting on the table.

“Now you have to wear it,” said Nicaise.

Damen narrowed his eyes. Wear it?

“You won,” said Nicaise, as though these were logical statements that followed one after another. “I have paid up, and now you have to wear it.”

“You don’t owe me anything,” said Damen.

“Of course not,” said Nicaise. “You have to wear the earring.”

“That wasn’t part of the bet,” said Damen. “I don’t even have pierced ears.”

Nicaise tilted his head to one side, inspecting Damen as a baker might a loaf of bread dough that had failed to rise. “Well, you’re a soldier,” said Nicaise. “You can’t be squeamish about a little needle.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Damen.

Nicaise tilted his head to the other side. “So you are squeamish.” Damen could see out of the corner of his eye that Laurent’s attention had drifted from the book in his lap to the drama unfolding in Damen’s own corner of the room.

“You are not piercing my ears,” said Damen firmly.

Nicaise shrugged, and Damen had a moment to think that Nicaise had definitely given up too easily before Nicaise said, “Fine, Laurent can do it.”

“That is not what I meant—" said Damen, but his sentence was cut off by Nicaise shouting to Laurent.

“Laurent!” said Nicaise. Across the room, Laurent’s attention was now firmly fixed again on the book in his lap. “We need you to pierce Damen’s ears because of this bet.”

“No,” said Damen, but Nicaise was paying no attention to him, and taking a jeweled set of needles out of a drawer in Laurent’s dressing room.

“I need a candle,” said Nicaise, and that seemed to necessitate sitting almost on Laurent’s lap. Laurent was sitting near to the light as he read, though Nicaise could have probably managed to heat one of the needles in the lamp without needing to be quite so close.

“What did you bet on?” said Laurent, watching the needle in the candle flame.

“The Akielon is welshing on the bet,” said Nicaise, as though he were breaking bad news to Laurent.

“I am not,” said Damen.

“Akielons are without honor,” said Nicaise. “Everyone knows that.”

Damen growled in response. No matter how many times he told himself not to let Nicaise get to him it was often hard to avoid being drawn in.

Laurent reached out a hand to Nicaise, who handed over the needle to Laurent and then sucked on his own fingers as though they had been burned by the closeness to the heat.

Laurent walked across the room toward where Damen was still seated. Damen found himself watching the way Laurent’s hips moved as he walked, the easy serpentine motion of his stride. To Damen’s surprise, Laurent settled himself on his knees on the floor next to Damen’s stool, which put him at the right height to reach Damen’s ear.

“You won the bet,” said Laurent, eyeing the earring on the small table. “So you can have no objection?”

His inflection made it a question. Damen opened his mouth to respond that he did have an objection, and that this had never been part of the bet, but there was something in Laurent’s expression that caused him to hold his tongue, and when Laurent nodded at Damen’s silence there was something satisfied in his face.

Laurent had to bend rather close to Damen to position himself, and then he rested a hand on Damen’s neck and held Damen’s earlobe tightly in between his thumb and forefinger. The grasp of his earlobe was more painful even than the bite of the needle. There was a drop of blood on the needle when Laurent set it down on the table next to the earring, and then he took the earring up in his hand and threaded it in the newly made hole in Damen’s ear.

Leaning back, Laurent inspected his handiwork, looking at Damen’s face and his ear as an artisan might consider a work he has fashioned.

Nicaise reviewed the work from over Laurent’s shoulder with a moue of distaste.

“It suits you,” said Laurent.

Damen raised an eyebrow. This close, he noticed that Laurent’s own ears were both pierced, though he could not recall Laurent ever wearing an earring or any other jewelry.

Laurent rose to his feet, still looking at Damen. “You were readier with insults when I had you tied to the cross,” said Laurent, and he crossed the room to his bedroom and closed the door behind him.


	8. Chapter 8

Nicaise’s loss of their wager did not discourage him from continuing to pester Damen while he did calisthenics. 

It was full summer now, the weather had turned hot even in the mornings when they were in the practice room. 

Damen was accustomed to calisthenics in minimal clothing; it was hotter even in the spring in Akielos than in Vere at the height of summer, and it was common for the soldiers to strip down as they exercised. Nicaise had more of a Veretian sensibility with his clothing, though in deference to the heat he too had stripped to a fine linen shirt with loose sleeves.

Nicaise was testing himself now, raising himself up on his hands on the railing that circled Laurent’s practice ring, and Damen stood near to him prepared to try to catch him if he overbalanced. Nicaise’s shirt became untucked from his trousers, and fell down in front of his face, which caused him to tip, and Damen helped him to steady himself with a hand on his leg until Nicaise was able to tip himself down to land again in the practice ring feet first.

He had the light musculature of a dancer, but Damen’s attention was caught by a series of scars on his lower stomach. 

Nicaise tucked in his shirt once again and spat on his hands, preparing to tip himself up once again.

“What is that?” said Damen.

Nicaise arched a delicate eyebrow.

Damen gestured to Nicaise’s stomach where he had spotted the scarring on the skin. He had thought that Nicaise might be shy of a scar on his skin -- the boy was painfully sensitive to any sort of implication about his age, and Damen belatedly realized that any sort of attention given to a physical imperfection was likely unwelcome.

But Nicaise did not seem bothered. He paused in tucking in his shirt to hold the corner of it up for a better view of the scarring Damen had mentioned. After a glance down at his own stomach, he looked up at Damen. “What, you have never played with candles in bed?” said Nicaise, as though this revealed a shocking lack in Damen’s education. “Sometimes the wax is too hot.”

Damen cringed, though Nicaise seemed to take no notice.

 

By the height of the afternoon, Damen and Nicaise had abandoned the practice room for the balcony in Laurent’s chambers. It was too hot to be in the indoor ring. Nicaise proclaimed that it was too hot even to move, and had stretched out on a cushion in the shade, only moving to pluck a grape from a bowl and pop it into his mouth with a crunch. Damen was not quite so sensitive -- and had more experience training in the heat than Nicaise did -- but even he idled in the hottest part of the day after the midday meal, resting and observing the courtiers trying to find shaded spots in the garden for their own siestas.

Laurent returned to his rooms. He had not shed any layers of his own clothing; his jacket still laced up to his neck. But the hair at his temples was damp with perspiration. Damen watched as he entered, poured himself a goblet of water from a sweating pitcher that a servant had left on a table near the door, and drank it quickly before breathing deeply. Laurent set the goblet down and crossed the room toward the balcony as though he were searching out a breeze. Laurent glanced down at Nicaise’s position on the cushion, and it was a testament to the heat that Nicaise did not even bother to talk to him. 

In the evening it was still warm, but cool enough to move around again, and Nicaise wandered around Laurent’s rooms restlessly. He amused himself with playing cards for a short while, dealing the cards to himself until his solitaire game lost interest. Damen felt Nicaise’s gaze flit from Laurent working on his correspondence near the lamp and Damen’s spot observing the gardens.

Nicaise seemed to decide that Laurent was unlikely to be distracted from his work, and focused his attention on Damen. “Do you play fox and hound?” said Nicaise, gesturing with his deck of cards. 

Damen assumed this was a Veretian card game, but it was not one he had ever played, so he shook his head.

Nicaise frowned. “Piquet?”

Presuming that was the name of another game, Damen shook his head again.

“Taking the tower?”

“No,” said Damen. 

Nicaise sighed. “How provincial,” he said, as though that were an insult. “I suppose Akielons are too barbaric for card games.”

Damen let that barb against his homeland pass. “I play chess,” he said, tilting his head toward the set he had seen on one of Laurent’s shelves.

Nicaise gave him a considering look and then nodded, and Damen rose to meet Nicaise in front of the table as he carried over the wooden case. The box of Laurent’s chess set exhibited fine craftsmanship, the carving of the box itself a work of art. The board was also wooden and unfolded elegantly from the carving of the box, and the stone pieces were also exquisitely done, and carefully placed in carefully shaped slots lined in black velvet. 

Nicaise set the board on the table and started placing the stone pieces on the board. 

It did not take that many moves before Nicaise was frowning at the board and scowling at his pieces that Damen had already knocked over. 

“You’re cheating,” said Nicaise.

It was a losing opponent’s last grasp, so Damen ignored Nicaise and took his turn. 

“Akielons always cheat,” said Nicaise. 

“Where do you get your information about Akielos?” said Damen, successfully keeping his tone mild and his eyes on the board while he waited for Nicaise to move. There was one move Nicaise could make to escape the siege Damen had set for him but it didn’t seem that Nicaise had seen it yet. Damen sat back in his chair to wait. As he leaned back he saw Laurent’s head turn back to his desk across the room.

“Everyone knows Akielons are cheaters,” said Nicaise. 

“Hm,” said Damen noncommittally. 

“You parley for peace and then greet our messengers with poisoned arrow tips,” Nicaise continued. His fingers were poised to make a move; it was not the correct move.

“Akielons do not poison their arrows,” said Damen.

“I know how Aleron died,” said Nicaise. 

“A lucky shot from an archer doesn't require poison. Akielons don’t poison their arrow tips,” said Damen.

Nicaise moved. It was a poor move, so it hardly mattered what position Damen took next; he had multiple moves that would finish the game in five turns.

“They did at Marlas,” said Nicaise. 

“I was at Marlas,” said Damen, wondering if there was much point in playing out the remaining turns now that the conclusion of the game was a given. “I saw the archers. They did not poison their arrows. Akielons do not do that.”

Nicaise seemed to be coming to the realization that none of the moves he could make were good ones, and he was glaring at the board.

“You’ve lost.”

Nicaise and Damen both looked up to see Laurent standing next to the table where they were playing, having missed his crossing of the room.

Laurent gestured at the board with a delicate finger. “You’ve lost,” he said, looking at Nicaise. 

“I have not,” said Nicaise, and he moved his rook definitively, though it still did not matter to the outcome of the match.

“It’s important to know when you are outmatched,” said Laurent, and though his voice was still pitched toward Nicaise, his eyes were resting on Damen now. Damen took his turn in the game quickly and met Laurent’s gaze easily. Laurent looked on Damen as though he had every right to look at Damen for as long as he liked and that Damen did not even have a right to question it. Damen looked back at him without blinking. Laurent’s hair was tied back away from his face, his features were partially in shadow away from the moon over the balcony and the lamp near the desk. He wore the same dark ornately-laced jacket he had worn earlier in the day for private meetings with courtiers. He stood with some stiffness and as Damen watched Laurent reached out absently with his left arm as though to stretch his shoulder.


	9. Chapter 9

Laurent’s strange tolerance of Nicaise had extended -- for a time, at least -- to their sleeping arrangements. 

Damen had a pallet spread in the main room of Laurent's quarters. He liked to stay close to the main entrance as a weak point in their defenses when they were asleep. The first night that Nicaise had arrived the servants had delivered a second pallet to the main room, but when it had come time to retire for sleeping Nicaise had ignored the bedding and tested the latch on the door to Laurent’s own room. 

Finding it unlocked, Nicaise had padded barefoot into Laurent’s bedroom and had not emerged again. The door remained open a crack behind him. Damen had listened closely; he was confident that nothing was happening in Laurent’s room besides slumber, though he was less confident what he would do should he have thought that Laurent and Nicaise were having sex.

That first night had set a pattern for their sleeping arrangements that Damen had seen repeated. Nicaise was permitted to join Laurent in his room, and even, as Damen observed one time that the door was left halfway shut, to join Laurent on his bed. The two of them had been asleep when Damen glanced through the open space. They were each positioned on either side of Laurent’s bed, which was the same carved wood as the other furniture that adorned his chambers. They each curled in toward the center of the bed without touching, as though they were shielding something precious in between the two of them that neither of them quite dared to touch but wouldn’t let anyone else even see.

The night after Damen and Nicaise had played chess, Nicaise had followed Laurent to his bed as usual. Damen was not certain what had passed between the two of them in the middle of the night, but he awoke to a commotion that culminated in Laurent opening his bedroom door and banishing Nicaise out to the common room. Laurent retreated again. Pouting, Nicaise tried the door to Laurent's room, only to find that Laurent had turned the lock from the inside. 

Having half-sat up in the darkness, to see what was going on, Damen settled himself back on his slave pallet and went back to sleep while Nicaise was still standing forlorn in front of Laurent's newly locked door.

Damen rarely dreamed. He had hardly dreamed as a boy. He had not been frightened by dreams of monsters chasing him in the dark tunnels of the castle at Ios, nor had he frequently had pleasant dreams of his mother being alive or of trailing behind his brother on a hunt. As a young man he had no trouble sleeping and slept without interruption. It was as though he thought straightforwardly and in the present while he was awake and while he was asleep, and when he did dream it was of mundane happenings that he forgot soon after waking, such as eating breakfast with his father or walking with Nikandros in the orchards.

It seemed at first as though the dream he was having was another one of those mundane repetitions of everyday life. He was in the palace baths in Ios, surrounded by the marble tiles of the royal bath chamber, the liquid churn of the aqueducts that filled the heated and cooled baths, and the rumble of the furnace that heated the water. It might have been any day in Ios as he was bathing, and served by one of the slaves as she washed him. 

Her body was close to his as she tended him, and his thoughts turned from those of the bath to those of his bed, and in the strange way of dreams they were suddenly in his room in Ios, and instead of washing him and tending to his hair, the woman slave was seeing to his pleasure, stroking him with small hands and soft caresses.

She spoke to him, also, and it registered as strange to him even in the dream that she was speaking to him in Veretian, and he woke to realize that he was in Arles, no longer chained to the floor in Laurent's slave quarters but his slave nonetheless, sleeping near the door to Laurent's rooms like a guard dog.

There was no slave woman from his harem tending to him, but Nicaise was reclined next to him. Damen rolled the boy off of him and recoiled even as Nicaise reached for him yet again. Nicaise wasn't wearing any sleeping clothes.

"No," Damen said. "What are you doing?"

Nicaise rolled his eyes as though that were a very foolish question, and reached for Damen again. Damen grabbed his wrists -- Nicaise's wrists were so slender that Damen was able to grasp both of them in one of his hands -- and pinned Nicaise to the pallet to hold him still. 

"I am not interested in you," said Damen to Nicaise firmly, and he was about to let Nicaise's wrists go and shoo the boy back to his own pallet across the room when Nicaise startled him by screaming. 

He was loud, and Damen moved to muffle his scream reflexively by placing his other hand over Nicaise's mouth. The noise attracted attention, and two soldiers wearing the livery of the Regent's Guard burst into the room with their weapons drawn at the same time that Laurent himself emerged from his bedroom.

Damen looked up at Laurent, saw Laurent looking at him, and suddenly could see in his head the scene as Laurent would see it. The darkened room, the night noises from the garden floating in from the balcony in the sudden quiet after Nicaise stopped screaming. Damen on his pallet with Nicaise next to him naked and pinned at his wrists with his mouth covered to try to quiet him. Laurent already thought Damen was a rapist, this scene, witnessed by Nicaise and the guards, was everything Laurent must have been waiting for to have Damen actually beaten to death this time. If Damen himself had walked in on a similar scene he would probably not have believed his own protests either, and words of explanation died in his mouth unspoken.


	10. Chapter 10

Damen released Nicaise's wrists and let his own arms drop to his sides. Nicaise scrambled up off of the pallet and covered himself with a silk robe puddled on one of the chairs. One of the guards was watching Nicaise with interest. The other guard was watching Laurent. Laurent's eyes were still on Damen. Damen waited for the order, already picturing being hauled off to the cross again in his mind. 

Laurent turned to the guards. "Where are my men?" he said.

"Your grace," said the guard who had been watching Nicaise closely. "The Captain said --"

Laurent seemed to no longer be interested in this explanation. "You're dismissed," he said. 

"But the slave --" the guard objected.

Laurent simply raised an eyebrow at this audacity. The man held his own for a long moment, and then dropped his gaze to the floor under Laurent's eye and muttered an apology for his boldness. After another moment the guards bowed again and left the room, the door closing shut behind them.

Damen remained frozen in place on his pallet as the close of the door echoed through the room. 

Nicaise pointed at Damen, speaking to Laurent. "He was --" Nicaise started.

Laurent interrupted Nicaise with a raised hand. "Think very carefully about what you are about to say," said Laurent.

Nicaise's hair fell loose around his shoulders in a tumble of brown curls. They bounced when he shook his head.

"Do not make false accusations," said Laurent. "You are thinking of telling me that the barbarian slave touched you, no? Yet it seems very curious that you have spent many hours alone with him over the last weeks, and in that time he has never shown any signs of being overcome with lust for you, and when that did happen tonight, it happened on just such a time when there was a miscommunication in the guard that led to my uncle's men being on duty outside my room."

Nicaise met Laurent's gaze evenly, but his mouth hung open slightly as though he were rethinking what he had been going to say.

Laurent looked back and forth between Damen and Nicaise, as a man might who had both a dog and a cat and knew that they would fight as soon as he left the room. There was a riddle in Akielos about a man who had a fox, a goose, and a sack of grain, and had to take all three across a creek in a boat that would only fit one at a time; it seemed Laurent was in a similar quandary.

Damen still felt as though at any moment he was going to be hauled off to the dungeon again. So he almost flinched when Laurent turned toward him again with focus and beckoned. "Come with me," said Laurent, and then, inexplicably, Laurent returned to his bedroom.

Damen was frozen, so Laurent had to stop in the doorway to his own room and beckon at Damen again. "Bring your pallet," said Laurent.

Damen belatedly did as he was bid, rolling up his bedding and crossing the room to Laurent's bedchamber. 

Laurent stood in the doorway and Damen had to walk past him as he entered the room. He took in the space. There was a wardrobe off to the left and a corner of the room that served as Laurent’s dressing room. On the other side of the bedroom was a dressing table and a mirror framed with gold. Laurent’s bed was the centerpiece, with wooden posts reaching only a few inches from the ceiling. Once Damen was inside the room, Laurent locked the door, turning a large plated key in the door. Damen could hear the lock click into place, separating the two of them from Nicaise out in the main room.

If someone had told Damen the week prior that Laurent would turn the lock on his bedroom door with Damen inside, Damen would have only laughed. And if someone had told him that a year prior, he would have laughed as well. 

Neither of them were laughing now. Damen still felt as though he were only a few moments from the dungeons. 

“I didn’t--" he began, intending to explain to Laurent. Laurent interrupted him with the same raised hand that he had used to stop Nicaise’s accusations earlier in the evening.

Laurent lowered his hand. “Good night,” he said, and then he proceeded to return to his own bed as though Damen were not even in the room with him. Damen unrolled his pallet out on the floor near the door and reclined across it, but sleep was far away after his dream and the excitement. He felt Laurent’s presence only a few feet away across the room. 

Damen heard the door tried an hour later, either Nicaise was trying again to stir up trouble or he had become lonely in the open space of the main room by himself and wanted to return to curling up next to Laurent. In either case, the door was locked, and Laurent didn’t even seem to notice Nicaise’s attempt to enter. Damen said nothing, blinking to himself in the darkness.

In the morning, Damen wondered what Laurent was going to do when they left the quiet of their room. Laurent dressed in front of Damen without seeming to take any notice of his presence. Damen turned his face aside to look at the wall. 

When Laurent had his hand on the key in the door, Damen said, “He’s just a boy.”

Laurent looked over at him, then. “Did your father spare you when you were just a boy?”

Damen felt his forehead crease. “No.”

Laurent nodded, and he opened the lock.


	11. Chapter 11

Damen found his services enlisted again as Laurent’s bodyguard, and much of the rest of the week was spent escorting Laurent around the palace, trailing him during meetings with courtiers in the gardens, careful sipping of ices with emissaries from Vask in an alcove overlooking the lake, or, particularly enjoyably, riding outside the palace with Laurent and Estienne. Estienne eyed Damen nervously for much of the trip, as though Damen were going to turn violent the moment that Laurent had unclipped his leash. Damen’s eyes were on the southern horizon, thinking of his agreement with Laurent and his obligations to his homeland. 

After a luncheon where Laurent stirred a bowl of cold soup and made polite noises at Berenger while Ancel looked at Damen suspiciously, Damen was temporarily left in the gardens, and he found himself summoned by one of the Regent’s men off to the Regent’s study.

The Regent was already seated there when Damen arrived, and he gestured toward the sofa for Damen to be seated.

Damen sat. Laurent’s uncle seemed tired. His appearance was still grave and neat, his beard trimmed and his clothes clean and laced. There were slight circles under his eyes, though, that spoke of long nights and worry.

“I understand that you have taken my advice regarding my nephew,” said the Regent.

If Damen had not believed Laurent when Laurent had told him that Nicaise was reporting back to the Regent, he supposed this would have clinched it for him. The only person besides Laurent himself who would have known of the change in the sleeping arrangements in Laurent’s room would be Nicaise. The Regent’s guards had been there for the fuss around Nicaise’s protests, but had been dismissed before Laurent had decided upon his new arrangements.

Damen simply inclined his head, slowly. It was not quite agreement.

“Give me your opinion,” said the Regent. “Will Laurent ever be ready to take on a man’s responsibilities?”

Damen considered his impressions of Laurent from when he had first met him and seen him flitting about the court to his knowledge now of Laurent’s habits. Laurent did not shy from work. He rose early and retired late, and his days were filled with appointments, correspondence, and study. He ate moderately; he did not drink. Damen’s initial impression of Laurent’s life of opulence and leisure was, he realized now, more formed by the nature of Laurent’s surrounding and the habits of court life than by anything particular to Laurent himself. If anything, Laurent belied his surroundings by living more austerely and strictly than they permitted. Laurent behaved petulantly, but only around his uncle. With other courtiers he was collected and insightful. It was a key weakness, but an understandable one, Damen supposed, and spoke well for Laurent’s abilities once he assumed the throne himself.

Damen attempted to be diplomatic. “Your grace has clearly put much effort into teaching him.” 

The Regent gave a soft breath of air, as though he disbelieved Damen’s lie. 

A knock on the door. The Regent called for the guard to enter. The man kept his head angled down toward the floor. “Your grace,” said the guard. “The prince is searching for his slave.”

The Regent turned back to look at Damen for a long moment. 

“Well,” the Regent said finally. “Don’t keep him waiting,” and Damen left.

 

Laurent seemed spooked by something. When Damen was returned to him again he was not amidst conversations with courtiers, but was standing up against one of the stone walls of the palace with three members of the Prince’s Guard standing by. Laurent watched Damen approach, and then turned on his heel and headed toward his chambers again. Part way to Laurent’s rooms, Laurent stopped in the middle of the corridor. Damen stopped a step behind him. Laurent’s guards took a second step before they caught on.

Damen looked at Laurent quizzically, but then Laurent turned suddenly, and they all fell into step behind him again.

When Damen recognized where they were headed, his own footsteps slowed. The bath chamber was the same as the last time Damen had been there with Laurent. Steam tickled up toward the arched ceiling from the bathing pools. The walls were still covered in the same tiny painted tiles. Some of the tiles were the same blue as Laurent’s eyes. 

They entered the chamber all together, and then Laurent made a peremptory gesture with his left hand and his guards circled around the pools to the left and the right, evicting two pets who were entwined in an alcove and sending them out through the twisted metal of the door.

The pets were young men, perhaps Ancel’s age, and they picked up their towels and left the room quietly. 

After they were alone in the room, Laurent signalled to his guards again. “Watch the door; no one comes in,” he said.

Damen moved to leave with the guards. 

“You stay,” said Laurent. 

Damen halted with one hand on the metal grille of the door. “I don’t think this is a good idea,” he said.

“I wouldn’t have thought you were stupid enough to make the same mistakes twice,” said Laurent. “I need assistance. You stay.”

Damen let the door fall shut behind the guards. 

Laurent held out an arm. “Undress me,” he said.

Damen swallowed. He walked over to where Laurent was standing near one of the alcoves, and played the role of manservant, unlacing Laurent from his jacket. His jacket laced along the sleeves, and Damen pulled out the ties on the left arm and then the right, and then he undid the front of the clothing, and pushed it back off over Laurent’s shoulders. 

Laurent shed his own linen shirt underneath, and then took a step backwards and unlaced his own trousers, then sat on the bench in the alcove to remove his boots before he stood naked in the baths yet again. Damen tried to rest his eyes anywhere in the room except Laurent’s body, and settled on the way the water lapped up against the end of the tiled pool.

Laurent waded into the water, immersed himself, and then moved over to where the water filled the pool from the tunnel leading to the underground springs. The room was filled with the sound of water and the oppressive mist of the steam.

“Come here,” said Laurent.

Damen hesitated.

“Don’t make me say it again,” said Laurent. Damen was torn between the danger that Laurent presented naked in the baths and the danger that Laurent’s anger presented if Damen didn’t obey him. Damen moved in the direction of the baths. He went barefoot around the palace, so he walked into the pool without having to remove any footwear. Laurent watched as he moved closer. Damen stopped when the level of the water was about to hit the bottom of his tunic.

Damen was not the type of man to let his fears get too much the better of him, so he let his eyes settle on Laurent again. Laurent’s form was much as he remembered it. He was proportionately built, slender yet strong. Laurent’s skin was pale, exposed only in the baths and never touched by the warmth of the sunlight. His hair was golden colored all over, from his head to the trail down the center of his stomach. 

Looking at Laurent’s lower stomach, Damen noticed suddenly a faint pattern of darker skin, and he would have thought nothing of it -- it could be a fate mark, some infants were born with those -- except that it was remarkably similar to the scars he had seen only a few weeks prior on Nicaise.

Damen said nothing, but he supposed that his shock as he took this in showed on his face, because Laurent questioned him. “Does washing tax your intellectual capacity?” 

Damen lifted his eyes again to Laurent’s face, looking on him again with a new set of eyes. He imagined Laurent as he might have been at Nicaise’s age, and he could suddenly see a new affinity between the two. They had similarly delicate features, and at a younger age Damen could easily see Laurent with Nicaise’s light build and almost girlish flexibility. An image came to Damen’s mind of Laurent wearing Nicaise’s earring -- he had noticed that Laurent had pierced ears, after all -- and he wanted to shudder.

“Why are you doing this?” said Damen, meaning the baths and how Laurent had arranged again for them to be alone. “Is this another trap for me to fall in to? If you wanted me thrown in the dungeon why not just let Nicaise make an accusation?”

Laurent held out a bar of soap to Damen. “Wash me,” he said, and Damen gave up on ever trying to understand how Laurent’s mind worked, and moved closer and started with the relatively safe task of soaping Laurent’s shoulders.

When he reached for a bowl to rinse the soap away, Laurent spoke very softly over the sound of the running water. 

“This is not a trap,” said Laurent. “I wanted to speak with you with confidence that I would not be overheard.”

Damen looked around the baths again. The pipes, the echo of the water, the privacy afforded in the chambers by Laurent’s position, he supposed it was a location that worked to that effect.

“Yes?” said Damen, beginning to wash Laurent’s back.

“My uncle is trying to have me killed,” said Laurent. 

Damen looked up at him, startled. “Surely not.”

Laurent looked grim. “I need you to be on guard. I am sure I do not have to explain to you that if I do not live long enough to become king, that our arrangement regarding your freedom at that point will be irrelevant.”

“How do you know I’m not working for your uncle?” said Damen, feeling again that the Veretian court was a giant web of spiders.

Laurent tilted his head. “Are you?”

“No,” said Damen. “But I have a hard time believing that you think that only because I said it.”

Laurent actually gave a small pleased smile. 

“I have my reasons,” said Laurent. “Do you understand the danger that we are in?”

Damen nodded, and Laurent seemed to consider that the conclusion to their conversation. Laurent tolerated Damen washing his hair, briefly, and then waved Damen away and rinsed himself before exiting the pool. Damen tried to keep his eyes off of Laurent as Laurent dressed again, but they kept returning to the pale scars on Laurent’s stomach. 

 

That evening in Laurent’s bedroom, Laurent spoke to Damen again, this time in Akielon. “It would be more private if we held our conversations in your language.”

His accent was ridiculous, and Damen felt the corner of his mouth turn up in amusement. “You mean to speak in Akielon to protect yourself from eavesdroppers,” he said. 

Laurent nodded. 

“There are already rumors,” said Damen, because he heard the guards talk in front of him, sometimes. “That you are taken with a brutish Akielon slave. Turning to his language will probably only fuel the rumors faster.”

Laurent pursed his mouth as he considered a reply. “I am aware of what people say about me.”

Damen nodded.

“What words does a man use to command a slave in Akielos?” said Laurent suddenly. He was sitting in the center of his bed, propped up on one arm in his nightshirt, and he looked remarkably young when he had a relaxed posture and not the tautness with which he usually held himself. The thought of it made Damen drop his eyes to the floor. 

“Words to command a slave?” he said. “A man can command a slave however he likes.”

“Did you have slaves, in Akielos?” said Laurent, and Damen felt that the conversation was taking a very dangerous direction. 

“I don’t have any slaves now,” he said. 

“You seemed quite knowledgeable about how slaves ought to be treated, with Torveld,” said Laurent. “Surely you have commanded them yourself on occasion.”

Damen nodded reluctantly. It was not too great of an admission. There were many men in Akielos who owned slaves even if they did not have a harem such as were kept in the royal residences. And there were even more men who might have commanded a slave when visiting as the guest of a patron or friend, even if they had none at their own house.

“So what did you say?” said Laurent. “What was your pleasure, when you were the keeper and not the possession?”

It was not the way that a native-speaking Akielon would have phrased the sentence, and Damen felt torn between the impulse to correct Laurent’s language and to finish the conversation entirely. 

“Good night,” said Damen, in Akielon.

And there was a wisp of a smile on Laurent’s face before he lay down and his expression was hidden from Damen on the bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for the encouraging comments while I write!


	12. Chapter 12

After Laurent warned him, Damen was on watch for an attack. He triple checked the Prince’s Guards, making a note to learn each of their names so that he might recognize all of the men and know their strengths and weaknesses. He inspected Laurent’s rooms yet again for points of entry and for potential weapons in the case of a fight. 

But of course this was Vere, so when the attack came, it was not in any form that Damen had been expecting.

They were at breakfast. Not the usual type of plain fare that Laurent preferred in his own rooms, decorative plates of eggs and vegetables delivered by the servants for the three of them. This was a formal Veretian breakfast. In retrospect, the entire meal had probably been orchestrated for the scene that unfolded once Laurent was arrested, but when Laurent had taken Damen to it at first, trailing two steps behind him on the thin golden leash, it had only seemed like any other formal Veretian breakfast. 

It was a relatively small affair for a formal Veretian meal. The food was served not in the main hall, but in a smaller audience chamber in the Regent’s wing, with a smaller number of courtiers in audience. Laurent called it a “family breakfast” but it was nothing like what Damen would have called a family breakfast. He would have called sitting down with his father and Kastor a family meal, regardless of whether they were served at the high table of the hall in Ios or whether they sat around a campfire just the three of them on a hunt. The breakfast in Vere seemed to be called a family affair by virtue of being held in the Regent’s rooms and not the public hall, whether or not any of the Regent’s family members attended. Laurent did attend, but so did eight courtiers, and there were seven pets seated at the tables as well, including Damen. 

There were multiple courses, of course. Damen only got to see the first one, though, which was some sort of cold green colored soup served in delicate porcelain cups. As the servants were clearing the dishes with the remnants of the green soup and bringing out fresh dishes with some sort of fowl, two members of the Regent’s Guard arrived with a letter on a silver platter. The letter bore the seal of the Veretian council. Damen observed belatedly that oddly enough none of the courtiers attending the meal were wearing the chain and emblem of the Veretian council.

The Regent frowned mildly, as though delivering a letter in the middle of the meal were in bad taste, but he took the letter off of the platter, broke the seal on it with the letter opener resting next to the parchment on the platter, and then placed the letter opener back on the platter while he read.

Damen had noticed that Laurent had become remarkably still next to him, his attention also focused on the Regent as he opened the letter.

Laurent then rested a hand on Damen’s upper arm, and he stood up.

“We’re leaving,” Laurent told Damen, and Damen rose next to him. Laurent didn’t bother to reclip the golden chain onto Damen’s collar and left it sitting next to him on the floor near the table. 

But they only made it two steps away from the table before the Regent’s Guard began streaming into the room. Guards wearing the Regent’s livery streamed behind the guests seated at the table, blocking the servants from the table, and causing the guests to start looking around the room curiously. 

The Regent nodded at the captain of the guard, and the captain stood directly in front of Laurent. 

“Your grace,” said the captain, “We need you to come with us.”

Laurent looked across the table toward his uncle, and then back at the captain. “I’d rather not,” he said, his tone controlled. “Why don’t you share whatever accusations have been trumped up against me right here.”

“Conspiracy to murder,” said the captain evenly. 

“Conspiracy with whom?” said Laurent.

The captain nodded in Damen’s direction.

“With my pet?” said Laurent, as though the notion that a pet could even face a criminal charge were ridiculous, and there seemed to be, in the faces of the other courtiers at the table, some sympathy for that position.

Damen watched Laurent for a signal. Laurent was better with words than weapons, and with the room filled with eighteen soldiers, a fight that turned to weapons seemed to have poor odds. Even turning to violence long enough for a distraction to escape the chamber seemed unlikely. 

Laurent seemed to come to the same conclusion, because he allowed himself to be led out of the breakfast salon by the guard. The guards didn’t put their hands on Laurent, and he walked amongst them as though they were an escort, but Damen found himself manhandled into a grip that kept his arms behind his back as he was walked down the corridor behind Laurent.

They went through corridors that Damen had never seen before, walking down steps into a lower level of the palace that Damen did not think he had ever visited. Underneath the glamour of the main level of the palace at Arles were stones that looked much older than the palace, remnants of an older keep from many years ago. And in the buried older stone chambers, someone had set up a dungeon.

Their treatment was oddly enough reversed when they were taken to a cell in the dungeon under the palace. Damen was released into the cell and took a staggering half step to catch his balance as his arms were let go. In contrast, Laurent’s hands were bound behind him and attached to the back wall of their dungeon. Laurent did not fight having his hands caught up and twisted behind his back, he simply stared at the guards near him with an expression of distaste.


	13. Chapter 13

They weren’t mistreated, and after Laurent had been secured in the cell to the captain’s satisfaction, the guard filed out, leaving them alone. 

Damen inspected the metal shackles around Laurent’s wrists. It was nothing like the gold cuffs he wore himself, these were iron, and without decoration, purely for restraint. 

“I don’t think I can get them off,” Damen said regretfully, testing the strength of the chain where it was bolted to a panel in the stone. It held even when he put his full weight against it.

Laurent had his eyes closed and seemed to be putting some degree of effort toward controlling his breathing. 

“I should have seen it --” said Laurent. “I knew he was planning something, I should have known--"

“Should have known what?” said Damen, still holding the chain. 

“I thought he was still trying to send me to the border,” said Laurent, and there was actually a tremor in his voice. “My plans were for allies to meet me once I was near the border--”

Damen let the iron chain drop to the ground with a clang, and he stood in front of Laurent, watching his breathing. Sometimes men became terrified at the idea of their enemy; the fear was just as debilitating as the enemy. Damen made his own breathing louder, trying to lead Laurent by example into slower, deeper inhalations. 

Laurent squeezed his eyes closed and after a moment he seemed to bring himself back under control. 

“All right,” Laurent said after a moment, and his voice was steady. He spoke now in Akielon. “I have to think. Why are you here.”

Damen raised an eyebrow, and glanced back toward the door to the cell, which was locked. 

“I mean why throw you in the --” he didn’t seem to know the Akielon word for dungeon, and after a moment he selected a different word, “pit with me.”

“We are conspiring together,” Damen offered from the guard’s accusation.

“We are,” Laurent agreed, “but why make that accusation. It will not be easily believed. My hatred for Akielos is well known, even the nobility not here in Arles will have heard of the punishment I merited for beating you. Even if some here in the capital are willing to believe that you’ve turned my head in the bedroom, it seems like a strange story for him to pick.”

Laurent’s mind seemed their best option to escape the dungeon, so Damen encouraged him. “What would you have thought he would pick?” said Damen.

“I’m not sure,” said Laurent. “I should have been considering that. I thought he was trying to demonstrate that I was a coward who needed military service.”

Damen blinked; it was very hard to picture Laurent doing military service, though perhaps it would be good for him to go on campaign.

They both froze at the sound of the metal grate of the door opening at the end of the corridor. Even standing at the bars of the cell they couldn’t see that far along the hall, but Damen moved them further back into the cell anyway. That allowed him to take a position near Laurent, within the range of motion Laurent’s chains permitted him. They could hear the fall of a man’s boots on the stone floor.

The visitor was Laurent’s uncle. The Regent stood carefully out of arm’s reach of their cell. He was holding a large iron key.

“Laurent,” he said, with the slow drawl of a disappointed parent. “I thought you would have been smarter.”

“Let me out, and I’ll do better next time,” said Laurent coolly, all traces of the panic he’d shown Damen a moment before suppressed and his body and voice now tightly under control.

The Regent laughed slightly, as though that remark pleased him. “Just when we were starting to have a good time again,” he said. Nephew and uncle had interlocked gazes.

Damen caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of his eye, and saw that Nicaise had crept barefoot down the stairs to the dungeon behind the Regent. Neither Laurent nor the Regent seemed to notice him peeking around the edge of the hallway. 

Damen said nothing. This was not the kind of battlefield he was good at. When the Regent turned his direction, he was surprised. 

“I thought you might already be taking advantage of the situation,” said the Regent, directing his words at Damen.

Damen said nothing.

The Regent considered him a moment more. “I brought something--” he unfastened a pouch from his belt, a small cloth sack tied at the top. He moved toward the torch that lit the hallway outside the cell. It was out of their reach as a weapon, but he tipped the pouch over the torch.

The flame sputtered and coughed, and the fire began to smoke. Damen recognized the smell of chalis now. The Regent considered the quantity of smoke in the air, and tipped the pouch over the torch again.

“To put you in the mood,” the Regent said, directing this comment at Laurent. Damen understood now why Laurent was chained to the wall and he was not, why the two co-conspirators had been placed within the same cell. Everything in Vere was deliberate.

The Regent stepped toward the door, and quickly, before Damen could move away from the corner furthest from the smoke, where he had retreated to avoid the effect, he unlocked the cell door and the grate swung open with a rusty clang. The Regent retreated back through the corridor, away from the smoke and the open cell. “There is a corridor to your left,” said the Regent. “And a horse at the end of a secret exit.” The Regent paused at the edge of the corridor where Nicaise had been a few minutes before. The boy was nowhere to be seen now. “For when you are finished here,” said the Regent, glancing a final time toward the chalis smoke filling the cell, Laurent still chained against the wall. The Regent wore an expression that Damen disliked very intensely.

When Damen turned from uncle to nephew, he found that Laurent was already watching him. Laurent was not able to retreat as far from the torch as Damen had across the cell because of the chains on his wrists, and he had one arm up and was using his sleeve to cover his nose against the smoke. It covered half of his face as well, so Damen could only see his eyes wide above his arm.

In his mind's eye, the Regent's plan unfolded to Damen. The breakfast had been an excuse to know where Laurent was and prevent him from escaping from the arrest. The guests had probably been carefully selected as those who would spread the rumor of Laurent's disgraceful public arrest with his pet all over Arles. The news was likely already known in the countryside. And once the seed of doubt was planted by the arrest and the accusations and the gossip, a trial --especially a public trial -- could be easily avoided by a mishap for Laurent while in prison. One of the guards left the door loose, Laurent's violent and untrustworthy Akielon pet what, attacks him? Rapes him? Murders him? And then leaves, escaping through a little known tunnel. 

Laurent must have been playing out the same scenario in his own mind, probably faster than it unfolded for Damen. "He's not really going to let you escape," said Laurent. "You'll have to watch your back. He wouldn't leave a loose end like that."

"I can't just leave you here," said Damen. There was probably already some guard tasked with the messy job of cleaning up whatever state the Akielon barbarian left Laurent in. The Regent might hope that Damen killed Laurent after he had his fun, but even if Damen just left, the Regent most certainly planned to blame Damen for Laurent's death in any case. 

Laurent coughed, the smoke was thick on the air. When he spoke, his tone was acid. "I suppose this is just your style," he said. "Did you arrange for your partners to already be chained up in front of you in Akielos?"

Damen blanched. "That is not what I meant," he said. He had been going to inspect the heft of the chains that bound Laurent again, to search again for weaknesses so that they might both be able to take advantage of the escape route together, but the vitriol in Laurent's words held him back at the other side of the cell.

There was a high-pitched throat clearing, and Damen looked over toward the open cell door. Nicaise stood there, blinking furiously at the smoke that filled the chamber. 

"Here," said Nicaise, and he held out a key toward Damen. 

Damen took it, then crossed the room and fit it to the manacles that held Laurent captive.

"Nicaise," said Laurent urgently. "He will know it was you."

Nicaise shrugged. "I'm not really cut out for living on the streets like a criminal." 

"You're the most resourceful of all of us," said Laurent. His right arm was free and he stretched it out in front of himself gingerly as Damen worked on the left. "You can come with us."

Nicaise shook his head. "I don't think so."

Laurent frowned. "Talk to Orlant, then. Tell him that you need to hide -- I have some things set aside in a place of safety. And tell Orlant 'goldfinch.'"

"Goldfinch," Nicaise echoed, sounding skeptical.

Damen released Laurent's left arm, as well, and Laurent stretched his shoulder with a groan. Damen handed the key back to Nicaise. “Replace this where you found it."

"Goldfinch," said Laurent, but Nicaise was already scampering up the stairs and gone.


	14. Chapter 14

They moved cautiously through the tunnel, because it was dark, and because they suspected that there might be an assassin lurking with a knife behind any corner.

Surprisingly, it was exactly as the Regent had said. The tunnel let to outside, a dark spot on the outside of the palace wall where a small wooden door would attract minimal attention. It was a small alley between the stone building of the palace and a stone building that seemed to be a guild hall, and the only living being in the alley was a horse tied to a post and a rat scavenging a puddle in the cobblestones. 

Damen untied the horse. 

It was a cloudy afternoon, one of those days where night seems to come early, with gloom settling over the landscape and the light blocked out by the clouds even before rain begins to fall. 

"Where should we go?" said Damen. 

Laurent was staring at him. Laurent coughed again as a lingering effect of the chalis. It seemed to have taken hold of him more strongly than it had Damen, perhaps because he had been closer to the flame, or because he was smaller in build.

Damen had a sudden realization of Laurent’s vulnerability in a way that he had never felt before. Laurent generally seemed so in control, even when being dressed down by his uncle. He had had guards and men and power at his command, enough of all of those to have had Damen beaten almost to death, and to a point where Damen was always alert that Laurent could do it again. 

Damen might not have the stomach to have killed Laurent in the cell himself while he was chained and at a disadvantage, or even to have abandoned him in the cell to let someone else do the deed. But there was nothing stopping him from abandoning Laurent here, instead. He had been thinking ever since his arrival in Arles on the ship that he needed only a moment to slip away from the palace and he would make his way back to Akielos and his countrymen. He could take the horse and make his own way. Laurent was hardly helpless, certainly no more so than Damen himself. At least Laurent was still in his homeland.

Laurent seemed to know what he was thinking. “I can still make good on our agreement.”

Damen raised an eyebrow. “Can you?” It did not seem that Laurent was in any position to inherit at the moment, and Damen’s reward in their arrangement hinged on Laurent taking the throne.

“Or if you’re going to renege,” said Laurent, “Get on with it.”

“My word means something,” said Damen. He finished a brief inspection of the horse and the gear and mounted. Damen offered Laurent a hand up so Laurent could mount behind him.

"I will show you where we should go," said Laurent, and he took Damen's hand and mounted behind him. Laurent slotted his hips in behind Damen’s on the horse. 

Laurent said, "Go left," and proceeded to direct Damen through deserted portions of the city. Shopkeepers were boarding up their storefronts in preparation for the impending storm, farmers who had come in for market had already packed up their wagons. Pedestrians ran briskly through the city to get to their destinations before the rain began. 

Laurent led them to a large manor house surrounded by its own set of stone walls. The gate was open, and Damen signaled the horse to enter. 

A servant emerged from a side door to take the reins of their horse, bowing deeply to Laurent. The servant led their horse around the house toward the stables.

Laurent walked up the staircase to the main entrance as though he had no reservations about whether he was welcome. 

Damen hesitated. 

Laurent halted on the step one from the top. “Come,” he said, and waited for Damen to follow him up before continuing.

The master of the house -- whoever that was -- had his or servants well trained. Laurent was recognized by the older servant who let them in, and he and Damen were led to a sitting room and offered refreshment that Laurent waved off with a shrug. The servants made no mention of the oddities of their arrival -- that it was unannounced, uninvited, and on one horse in the middle of the rain. 

When their host arrived in the sitting room only a few minutes later, he was not wearing the emblem of his office as a councilor, but Damen recognized him from past meetings of the Veretian council nonetheless. It was Chelaut.

He was a middle aged man, perhaps slightly younger than Damen’s father. He was of average build, slightly taller than Laurent. His features were plain and his expression was mild.

Laurent stood when Chelaut entered, and Damen followed his example.

“Your grace,” said Chelaut, inclining his head. “So it has happened,” he said.

“Yes,” said Laurent. 

“He will guess that you have come here eventually,” said Chelaut. “I can offer you a few days at most.”

“That will do,” said Laurent. “We won’t impose on you long. Thank you.” 

Chelaut smiled briefly, though his face was without humor. “You have plans even now?” he said. “The rumors are not in your favor.”

Laurent looked at Damen suddenly. “Let me introduce you to my companion,” said Laurent to Chelaut, still looking at Damen. 

It was a strange word to use for a slave; Damen looked curiously at Laurent. Chelaut, who had looked past Damen as a slave upon first entering the room, had brought his eyes back to Damen with some amount of interest upon Laurent’s comment.

“This is Prince Damianos of Akielos,” said Laurent.


	15. Chapter 15

Chelaut was not able to completely disguise his surprise at this statement, but he recovered quickly, offering Damen the same inclination of his head that he’d greeted Laurent with. “Your grace,” he said. 

Damen himself was less graceful with his own surprise. He closed his mouth but could not keep his incredulous look from Laurent.

“Damianos and I,” said Laurent, with a slightly odd expression, as though he had never thought he might say those words, “have found that we have several things in common.”

Chelaut looked back and forth between the two of them, marveling. “I suppose.”

“And so we have decided to ally ourselves toward the purpose of ensuring that the rightful claimants are seated on the Veretian and Akielon thrones.”

Chelaut nodded slowly. “You can count on my support.”

Laurent nodded. “Thank you.”

Chelaut seemed to shake himself suddenly. “Apologies,” he said, “You are still wet from the rain. I have forgotten my manners and haven’t even offered meager hospitality.” He raised a bell off of a small table and held it in his hand as though waiting for permission before calling for the servants. 

Laurent nodded again, and it was the work of moments for the household to have settled Damen and Laurent in luxurious guest chambers. Chelaut’s house did not have the elaborate baths of the royal palace, but servants brought heated kettles of water from the kitchen to a marble tub and Damen rinsed himself off gratefully. There was a clean and dry set of clothing set out when he finished washing. Damen wondered if Veretian nobles kept entire closets of clothing in assorted sizes and fashions just in case they happened to entertain foreign royalty as visitors.

Laurent walked into Damen’s dressing room without announcing himself as Damen was trying to figure out how to finish lacing his tunic. Laurent’s hair was wet from his own bath, and slicked back away from his face. It made him look simultaneously older and younger. Despite the wet hair, he was fully dressed and laced into his own borrowed clothing. 

Laurent came to stand next to Damen and wordlessly brushed Damen’s own hands away from the knotted laces. Laurent’s fine-boned fingers picked apart the tangle Damen had made of the delicate lace, and then he adjusted the tunic on Damen’s frame and finished the lacing and tied the ends in a utilitarian knot, as adept as any Veretian servant. Damen tolerated the assistance.

“You know,” said Damen, as Laurent took a step back. The dressing room of Chelaut’s guest chambers was full of mirrors, and Damen could see echoing reflections of Laurent standing across from him in every direction. 

Laurent met Damen’s eyes. It was one of those moments where Damen remembered that when they stood close together Laurent had to look up to meet his gaze. Laurent seemed not to notice this; he seemed as self-possessed in this moment as he might have been when he had guards by his side who could make Damen kneel at his feet.

“You killed my brother,” said Laurent. “Wouldn’t you memorize the face of the man who did that to you?”

Damen felt as though he were memorizing Laurent’s face at this moment, the arch of his brow, the curve of his cheekbone. 

“It doesn’t change what’s between us,” said Laurent. 

Damen was not certain that was true. It felt to him as though everything between them had just been turned upside down. There was an Akielon proverb about how a jug of wine, once poured upon the ground, could not be refilled with the same beverage.

Laurent continued. “We have common interests. You have no reason to wish my uncle on the throne of Vere. I have no love for your bastard brother. We can assist each other with these goals as we have agreed, and what resentment remains between us can fall out after.”

“If we are to be allies,” said Damen, “then I need to be in your confidences. A servant might follow a plan blindly; a partner must understand the game.”

Laurent nodded slowly, agreeing. “Yes.”

A servant entered the dressing room, bowing low, and Damen and Laurent both turned.

“Your grace, the prince’s guard has arrived.”

“Good,” said Laurent, turning toward the door.

Damen caught his arm before he could move, and Laurent turned back, his eyes flicking from Damen’s face to his hand on Laurent’s arm. Damen kept his hand there, just a gentle pressure on Laurent’s upper arm.

“We’re not finished here,” said Damen.

“There is much unfinished between us,” Laurent agreed. “But there is some urgency to directing the captain of the guard.”

Damen let his hand drop from Laurent’s arm, and he followed, a step behind, as Laurent went out the door of the guest chamber.

When shackled in his cell, Damen had paid particular attention to the hierarchy of command amongst the men who seemed to be guarding him, and while he had identified some of the guards as more experienced as others as newer to Laurent’s service, he had not been able to establish that the men took orders from anyone but Laurent himself. 

Once moved into Laurent’s chambers, he had observed Laurent meeting with several of the guards on various occasions, seeming to split his attention between several of the more experienced men. He talked sometimes with Orlant, other times with Jord, less frequently with some of the other men.

There were five of Laurent’s guard in the sitting room, including Jord and Orlant.

Laurent’s first step was to inquire after the rest of the men. “Where are the others?”

Jord and Orlant were still bowing, the stood at attention. “Ready to ride,” said Orlant.

“Good,” said Laurent. “Watch for an attack; be ready to leave tomorrow.”

Orlant saluted. “Should we remain here to await orders?”

Laurent considered this for a moment. “One may stay as a messenger.”

The guards consulted amongst themselves, and determined that Jord would stay as the messenger. As the others were preparing to go, Laurent placed a hand on Orlant’s sleeve, pulling him to one side of the room away from the others. Damen was close enough to overhear. 

“Has Nicaise contacted you?” Laurent asked.

“Nicaise?” said Orlant, and the question in his voice was probably a sufficient answer to Laurent’s question.

“Has he returned to my rooms?” said Laurent.

“No,” said Orlant. “He’s returned to the Regent.”

Laurent let his hand drop from Orlant’s arm and dismissed him with a nod.

Damen started to ask a question and Laurent interrupted him with a short shake of his head.

Laurent and Chelaut spoke of nothing of importance over the meal together, and Damen sat at the table next to Laurent and fought the impulse to stand up at every moment and spring into action. He was not even certain what he wished to do, but he certainly wished to do something rather than sit around making small talk.

Laurent announced his intention to retire to sleep at what was a relatively early hour for a Veretian visitor, but it still felt that it had been interminable to Damen. Damen followed Laurent to the rooms he’d been appointed rather than to the rooms he’d been given, determined to have a conversation.

When the two of them were alone, Laurent sank into a chair and rubbed his temples, breathing out heavily. Damen became conscious suddenly of the aches in his own body, the exhaustion he felt from a day filled with extraordinary excitement intermixed with tense waiting. 

“Yes?” said Laurent finally, in Akielon.

His words almost took Damen by surprise. 

“I assume you have followed me here to ask something?” said Laurent, still speaking Damen’s language.

“What is the plan?” said Damen. “Where do we go next? Who are our allies? I feel like a blindfolded chess piece.”

Laurent rested his gaze on Damen evenly. “You are quite good at chess.”

It was a non sequitur; Damen ignored it. “Do you have other allies to retreat to?”

“I was hoping that you do, actually,” said Laurent.

“Me?” said Damen.

“In Akielos? You have been wanting to go toward the border since you arrived in Vere, no? Who are you planning to join with when you return there?”

The sudden turn of the questioning had spun Damen’s head. “I --” he said, then started again. “There are several in Akielos who would welcome my return as the king,” he said. 

“Nikandros?” said Laurent.

“Yes,” Damen agreed, surprised by Laurent’s familiarity with the Akielon generals.

Laurent nodded, as though he were placing that information away carefully. “So we will make for Akielos.”

“With the Prince’s Guard?” said Damen.

Laurent nodded again. “Tell me of what the terrain is like near the border.”

And their conversation turned to what they might expect during their travel and how to make contact with Nikandros. Laurent had apparently already established correspondence, so their strategy focused on how to prove to a skeptical Nikandros that Damen was still alive and that Laurent and Damen had temporarily allied their interests.


	16. Chapter 16

Laurent, Damen, and Jord woke early the next morning and departed Chelaut’s city home without any fuss or fanfare, riding quietly out of the city gates. There, the three riders met up with the remainder of the Prince’s Guard, already waiting on horseback, and the small contingent turned in the direction of the border. 

The Prince’s Guard was a small company, only twenty men, and they all knew each other well. They knew Laurent well also, and treated him with deference yet the comfort Damen recognized as long knowledge of one’s commander and the knowledge that he is a fair man and will not order his men anywhere he would not go himself.

So the men spoke easily amongst themselves as they departed. One of the men mentioned something that Damen did not even notice, except that it caused Laurent to rein in his horse and circle around to look at the man. 

“Who?” said Laurent.

“Your highness?” said the guard, looking startled at the sudden attention of his prince.

“Whose execution?” said Laurent.

“Oh,” said the guard, picking up the thread of conversation. “The Regent’s pet.”

Damen took a breath in.

“When?” said Laurent. 

“This afternoon,” said the guard again. 

Laurent had no expression on his face; he seemed as though carved of stone. 

“What are you thinking?” said Damen quietly after a moment, speaking in Akielon for a modicum of privacy.

Laurent did not reply.

Orlant shifted uncomfortably on his horse. “He was a spy.”

“He’s a boy,” said Laurent. 

There was a long moment of silence. The plains near Arles stretched out in front of them. The weather was fair and welcome for riding. The road to Akielos was clear; it was the closest Damen had been to his homeland since he had been taken off the ship.

“Turn around,” said Laurent.

The Prince’s Guard obediently began to change direction. Damen, who had been riding next to Laurent, reached out to touch his arm.

Laurent shook off the touch angrily. “Are you reneging now, then?” said Laurent, speaking Akielon. “Fine.”

“No,” said Damen. “But let us make a plan of how to approach this together with our strengths, and not walk blind and rushed into a trap.”

 

The execution was to take place at a location called Dead Man’s Hill, a clearing in the city north of the palace. As they approached the city they broke with the Prince’s Guard -- it was too conspicuous to travel in such a company, and only twenty men would not be enough to defeat the Regent’s men if they were caught anyway. As they approached the clearing, Damen took in the terrain. The clearing had probably been at one point on the edge of the town, but Arles had grown over time, and the clearing was now a square in the center of buildings and markets. Damen and Laurent had climbed, at Laurent’s instigation, up to the top of one of the buildings around the square, and they were crouched on the roof trying to take things in and formulate a plan.

As the sun rose to the highest point in the sky, Laurent shaded his eyes with one hand and bit his lip.

“You should go,” he said, staring out at the square, where some of the Regent’s men were assembling a wooden platform.

“What?” said Damen, counting the number of people in the clearing under his breath.

“This is a fool’s errand,” said Laurent. “It almost certainly ends with me on that platform next to Nicaise. There’s no need for both of us to die.”

“What if I create a distraction?” said Damen. He pointed across the square. “Over there, to take attention from the platform to the other end of the area.”

Laurent considered this, one hand still raised to shade his eyes. 

“I’ll try for a brawl,” said Damen. “So that it might continue even after I slip aside, and so that it might need to attract the Regent’s men to settle the crowd.”

Laurent lowered his hand and turned to Damen. Laurent’s back was to the light, so as Damen looked at him Laurent’s face was wholly in shadow and Damen could not make out his expression. “This is still a plan with thin odds,” said Laurent.

Laurent had no better plan, though, and Orlant had already exhausted all of the arguments for just leaving Arles and abandoning Nicaise to his own fate on their ride back to the city. So they continued.

 

A crowd assembled in the late afternoon for the execution. Damen kept the woolen hat that he had borrowed from a clothier pulled down over his hair and tried to frequently turn his face toward the wall of the market. The people who were gathering seemed to consider executions a somewhat regular form of entertainment, though this particular event seemed to have particular appeal because of the royalty involved. A conspiracy with the Prince against the Regent had the whole marketplace buzzing like a disrupted hive of bees. The crowd of Veretians was jaded, speculating on if there would be a last minute pardon (Laurent scoffed at this, though he made little reaction to other gossip), how the royalty would be dressed, whether the Regent would attend in person, if it were true that the prince had escaped the dungeons. Fruit sellers walked around with baskets, selling pieces to the crowd. The fruit seemed to serve both as refreshment as well as for throwing during the proceedings, Damen understood.

Executions in Akielos were nothing like this, Damen reflected. If a man were determined to be a traitor, and he were not offered the more honorable death in the ring, challenged by the one he had wronged, then he would have been seen to quietly, without spreading the dishonor of his death any further than necessary and to spare his remaining family from the tarnish.

Damen could tell when the time came not by the height of the sun in the sky -- it was blocked by the buildings on the far side of the square by this point. But he could tell by the arrival of the Regent’s guard. The parading Veretian soldiers caused him to want to flee more than ever. He felt again the temptation to just leave Laurent and his Veretian spiderwebs and to make his own way toward the Akielon border and the people that he understood. But he had given Laurent his word, and this was, after all, a honorable task that Laurent was engaged in.

The Regent’s Guard filled the edges of the square. Damen would have said the place was too packed for more men to have joined the space, but they flooded in like water into a crevice, filling up the empty corners and jostling the others who had gathered around into closer proximity.

The crowd and packed in space made Damen’s task oddly easier. He and Laurent had positioned themselves on opposite ends of the square, but within sight of each other, and when Damen saw Laurent drop his hand in signal, he began to create a disturbance in his corner of the square just as he heard commotion begin on the other end, presumably instigated by Laurent himself.

Damen elbowed a large man standing next to him, and then as that man turned his direction, he himself turned to glare at a third party and accused a different man of shoving. The victim of his elbowing fell for the trap and shoved back at the accused, and then Damen contributed further to the melee by tripping a fourth party who was turning to look, and that man fell on top of the elbowing victim, who cooperated helpfully with Damen’s plan for a brawl by punching the fourth party in the face in response. 

The Regent’s men were unfortunately better trained and organized than Damen might have hoped in this particular circumstance. They managed to clear the crowd quickly enough to make it over to the emerging fight before it spread beyond the initial four men Damen had turned upon each other, and as they were breaking up the fighters and pulling them aside to opposite sides of the square, one of the Regent’s men caught sight of Damen’s face.

“It’s the slave,” he called, pointing directly at Damen, and it was only a matter of seconds before six of the Regent’s guards had Damen surrounded with his hands caught up behind his back and being bound by one of the guard with a rough-hewn piece of rope.

Damen was dragged across the square unwillingly, with the hope that the longer he could drag this out the more hope there was that Laurent could think of something to do next now that the plan had fallen apart. There did not seem to be any commotion continuing in Laurent’s corner of the square, or if there were, the guards seemed to have subdued it as well.

Once they had crossed the cobblestones, the Regent’s guards prodded Damen up the steps to the top of the platform. Damen did not realize until he was standing on the platform himself that the Regent was there also. Standing next to him, he was an unremarkable man, somehow, shorter than Damen, a bit thicker around his stomach with the weight of middle age.

The Regent stood near to Nicaise, and it was as though a mallard stood near to a swan. Nicaise was the most striking one on the platform. His hands weren’t tied as Damen’s were, though he had his own set of armed guards standing next to him. His beauty was somehow highlighted by the early dusk light, the shadows and glints of light falling on his curls.

The Regent looked from Nicaise to Damen with a slight frown. “Keep looking for my nephew,” he instructed the captain of the guard, showing at least some fair amount of insight into Laurent’s motivations. The whole execution was, as Orlant had put it, a honey-sweetened trap.

The captain nodded, and signaled to some of the guards who were still sweeping through the square. Another man stood by and asked the Regent for direction. 

“Your grace?” he said. “Should we proceed with the execution?”

The Regent didn’t even bother to look at Nicaise. “Yes,” he said shortly. “Do the slave after.”


	17. Chapter 17

It was what Damen had anticipated. He supposed it was what Laurent had anticipated also, and the reason why Laurent had tried to send him away claiming that it was a fool’s errand. And yet, it did not seem to be what Nicaise had anticipated, and the boy wore an expression of indignant betrayal.

“You said--” said Nicaise, before he was grabbed by the two guards standing closest to him and manhandled toward the center of the platform. “You said I was to be the bait in a mouse trap!”

The Regent regarded him calmly. “Have you ever seen a mouse trap, child? The bait is eaten.”

“But you promised me a reward!” Nicaise struggled against the guards who were holding him. His efforts were at first ineffectual, but Damen could sense the moment when Nicaise remembered the days that they had trained in Laurent’s practice room, for his movements became practiced suddenly. He moved deliberately rather than out of desperation, elbowing one of the men holding him, freeing his wrist from the grasp of the other, and then turning easily with his light graceful movements to kick the first in the groin. 

Damen attempted to use the distraction of this to similarly escape from the hold the guards had on him, but it was less effective because his hands were tied and they seemed more prepared for him to struggle. 

He heard a shout suddenly, and recognized Laurent’s voice. “Nicaise!” Laurent called, and when Nicaise -- standing uncertain on the platform next to crumpled guard he had kicked -- turned toward the sound of Laurent’s voice, Laurent tossed a sheathed knife toward Nicaise.

Nicaise caught the knife easily.

Damen managed to free himself from the hold of the guards next to him, and shouldered one of them enough off-balance that he toppled off the platform into the assembled crowd. The crowd didn’t seem to know what to make of any of this. The Regent had turned at the commotion Damen was causing, so when Nicaise unsheathed the knife that Laurent had thrown him and stabbed him, he stabbed the man in the back.

The Regent crumpled slowly, but Nicaise was disturbingly persistent, stabbing the man over and over again. Damen approached next to him, the man and the boy both covered in blood, and rested a hand on Nicaise’s shoulder. “Give me the knife,” he suggested, his voice even.

Nicaise seemed to come out of some kind of daze, and seemed almost surprised to find the knife in his own hand, his hands covered with blood. He let Damen cover his own fingers on the knife, and then, at Damen’s urging, he released his fingers and let Damen take the weapon.

The crowd had quieted. The Regent’s Guard was standing uneasily. The situation was one ripe for a man to take charge with a note of command in his voice; one of those times where no one is quite certain what to do and men welcome the direction of another who seems to possess more knowledge than himself. The captain of the Regent’s Guard looked like he was one moment from making some kind of decision on what should happen next, but Laurent was faster.

He climbed gracefully from the crowd on to the platform, and everyone’s eyes went to him naturally. He was dressed like a prince; he carried himself like a prince; he was not covered with blood. 

Laurent commanded the Captain of the Regent’s Guard with a tone that presumed that there was no question the man would hesitate to follow his direction, and it worked.

“Clear the crowds from the square,” said Laurent, “And arrange for a burial.”

The guards sprang to action. Laurent made a signal with his hand, and Orlant must have also been watching for Laurent’s signal as Damen had earlier, for men wearing the Prince’s livery started to also flow in the square, working beside the Regent’s men at the task of dispersing the assembled citizens back to their homes and businesses.

Orlant and Jord fell in beside Laurent, and then Laurent signaled to Damen also, and suddenly they were retreating again out of the square, away from all of the unsettled people and the body. There were saddled horses in a small alley near to the square, and Damen mounted without thought to it. Laurent did the same, and then extended a hand to Nicaise. 

Nicaise seemed on the verge of breaking down again. “I can’t,” he said. “I’m covered in blood, and I have to leave, and I don’t--”

“Come back and wash,” said Laurent. “Think on your decision before you act.”

Nicaise accepted Laurent’s extended hand and allowed himself to be pulled up to the horse behind Laurent. 

Damen had not thought he would ever return to the Veretian palace again, but if Laurent had had any such similar feelings, he did not express them. Nicaise encountered a friend or servant named Jehan who seemed to take charge of helping him off to the baths, but Laurent’s clothes remained smeared with blood and he made no move to change. He strode confidently through the corridors, seeing to the everyday type of tasks that had to still be seen to on an extraordinary occasion, making arrangements for his uncle’s funeral, for all of the councilors to be summoned to him for formal oaths of loyalty, and for his own coronation.

There was hardly a spare moment to think. Damen had a passing thought at one point that perhaps now Laurent would issue Damen his freedom, since he no longer seemed to require an Akielon bodyguard trailing behind him. He now had his pick of not only his own guard but the entire Veretian army if he wished someone to defend him.

Yet Laurent kept Damen by his side throughout all of his meetings. When Chelaut was presented to give his oath of loyalty Laurent embraced him afterward and thanked him for his assistance. Chelaut nodded, seeming bemused, and bowed respectfully to Damen as though he were a foreign dignitary and not a slave.

Late into the evening, the stream of visitors and business showed no sign of slowing, and even when Damen commented on the hour, Laurent gave no indication that he might retire. Instead, he signaled a servant to escort Damen out, and when staging a coup to take over his throne Laurent apparently preferred privacy, for Damen found that he had been moved out of Laurent’s personal quarters and installed in the guest quarters of the palace instead. Nicaise was nowhere to be seen. 

Damen was tired; he should have felt exhausted. He felt as though he had lived a dozen lifetimes in the last two days. And yet, when alone in the guest chambers allotted to him, he found himself not inclined to sleep. He paced instead, staring at the Veretian furnishings and the habit of embellishing everything from the handles on a side table to the intersection of the wall with the ceiling. He stared out the window at the city, which seemed very different and mundane in comparison to Laurent's view with a balcony overlooking the gardens. The palace gardens were habitually filled with courtiers and pets; the streets of the Veretian market were filled with the same type of ordinary people Damen had jostled in his attempt to start a brawl. A man tried to coax a reluctant horse into an alley, another man loaded sacks of grain from one cart to another. The streets were paved with oddly shaped stones and the buildings and clothing were styled differently than Akielos, but otherwise the people could have been from Damen's own homeland. 

Damen thought suddenly of the older prince of Vere. He had only known Auguste on the battlefield, where he had found him accomplished and impressive. It was just as challenging for Damen to envision Auguste living amidst the Veretian palace as it was for him to envision Laurent on a battlefield. Would Auguste have kept pets? Would he have walked around the gardens with courtiers, subtly convincing them that his ideas were their own, the way Laurent did? He probably had inspired in his own guard the same type of loyalty as Laurent; Damen could at least picture Auguste's men following him to the end, just as Laurent's had willingly turned their horses around to ride into a trap at Laurent's command.

As the darkness grew deeper, the activity in the market faded. Eventually Damen reclined on the elaborate Veretian bed. It was softer and more elegant than the pallet he had been afforded on the floor of Laurent's apartments, and felt almost suffocating as he fell asleep.


	18. Chapter 18

He did not sleep long, and woke when the light was only starting to creep along the horizon. 

The market was already abuzz with merchants setting up for their day of work. When Damen left the rooms he was assigned and made his way through unfamiliar hallways it was clear that the palace servants were already busy at work also. Damen finally had to stop a page boy and ask him for how to find Nicaise. 

The page didn't know, but ran to find Radel, who sent the page off to find Jehan, and Jehan suggested the small herb garden off the kitchen. Damen had to recruit the page into showing him where the herb garden was located, since the kitchens and servants' quarters seemed like a maze unto themselves.

It was a practical garden, nothing like the elaborate paths of flowers, grass, and ornaments that compose the palace gardens for courtiers. This was small plots of various herbs surrounded by a small wall, kept close to the kitchen for the convenience of the cooks. One corner of the space was taken up by a small apple tree, Nicaise was leaning against the trunk.

Damen purposefully made noise as he approached the tree, trying not to startle the boy, but Nicaise did not look his direction and made no acknowledgement.

He stopped a few feet from the tree and stood awkwardly next to a patch of mint.

"Are you all right?" Damen asked. Nicaise had the haunted look that young men sometimes had after their first battle. Even when they had trained for war their entire lives they did not always know what it would be like until they had seen a skirmish while holding a weapon themselves.

Nicaise turned his face Damen's direction. He was not painted; he looked older, somehow. "Fuck off," he said, and his tone was pleasant, though the words were harsh.

Damen did not move. "You can come with me, if you like."

Nicaise stared at him as though Damen were speaking some strange language. "Go with you?"

"To Akielos," said Damen. He hesitated. Laurent was much better with words than he was. "I could understand if you wanted to start fresh," he said.

"In Akielos?" said Nicaise, with the same tone. He might have said "In the desert wasteland?" using the same inflection.

"You can think on it," said Damen. He turned around to pick his way between the plants and out of the small garden.

Nicaise said, "When do you leave?"

Damen turned back toward the apple tree. "Soon. I have to talk to Laurent."

 

Talking to Laurent was more difficult than it might seem. Damen was accustomed to having a bodyguard's access to Laurent and plenty of quiet moments between the two of them to pose a question. Yet now that it seemed like their bargain had been settled, Laurent was busy enough with his prize that it was harder for Damen to find a moment to speak with him. 

Come the afternoon, he determined that perhaps it was not necessary to talk with Laurent to conclude the second portion of their agreement. Laurent had said that after he was king they could let things fall out between them as they would, perhaps this was his complicated Veretian method of letting Damen free without requiring either of them to confront what they had only started to talk about in Chelaut's dressing room, which was that Damen had killed Laurent's beloved older brother. And so Damen went to the stables to speak with one of the grooms about arrangements for travel.

Laurent found him in an empty horse stall searching for a brush.

"You have an odd notion of what's expected of visiting royalty," said Laurent.

Damen turned toward the front of the stall, the brush he'd been searching for now held in his right hand. "I've been looking for you."

"Did you think I was hiding under that pile of hay?" said Laurent, eyeing the stall.

Damen recognized the insult as the good-natured kind Laurent made when he was in a good mood.

"So you are to be king," said Damen. 

"Yes," said Laurent. 

"And our agreement is kept," said Damen.

Laurent leaned against the opening of the stall; he was blocking Damen's path.

He didn't explicitly agree with what Damen said.

"The coronation is not until next week," said Laurent. "It is really the quickest I could expect the nobles traveling in from the countryside to appear."

Damen did not understand how this related to their agreement. "I have offered to take Nicaise with me to Ios," he said.

Laurent raised an eyebrow, and Damen answered the unasked question by raising one shoulder, indicating that he was uncertain of Nicaise's response.

"I cannot leave until after the coronation," said Laurent.

"And so?" said Damen.

"For Akielos," said Laurent. "I cannot leave until the coronation ceremony. Can you wait that long?"

"You are coming to Akielos also?" said Damen. If he had struggled to picture Laurent on a battlefield, picturing him in Akielos was all the more challenging. He wondered if Laurent would shed any of his tightly-laced jackets amidst the southern heat.

"I thought you might find my support and my men helpful to your quest," said Laurent, switching to Akielon. He was much better for having practiced with Damen the last few weeks, though he still spoke with an amusing lilt. "Though I admit I am not completely clear on what it is you plan to do when you approach the border."

"I--" Damen could feel a smile beginning to grow on his face. "I suppose it would be helpful to have a plan," he agreed, in the same language. "And to have your support."

Laurent nodded, then pushed himself off of the stall door and half-turned toward the door before looking back. 

"Sit next to me at dinner tonight," he said to Damen, and the tone was half between a command and an invitation.

"As your pet?" said Damen, since that was the entirety of his experience of Veretian meals. 

"As my guest," said Laurent. "I'm changing some things about the court. I'd like to show you." Damen found himself helplessly accepting the invitation.


	19. Chapter 19

Laurent’s court was apparently less frivolous and extravagant than his uncle’s, and also less inclined to mix business and pleasure. Laurent’s days were filled with work and the tasks of governing a kingdom and administering an estate. When he reserved time for enjoyment, as he did the evening after his coronation, it was not mixed with undercurrents of political talk, but rather straightforward enjoyment of the gardens and the music. Estienne overcame enough of his fear of Damen as an out of control barbarian slave in order to pander a bit to the foreign prince who now so obviously had the king’s favor, and invited Damen to dance. 

“I don’t know the steps,” said Damen, eyeing the other young men and women who had formed a circle on the grass.

“I’ll show you,” Estienne said flirtatiously. 

Damen inclined his head, and allowed Estienne to take his hand and lead him into the circle, and followed along after Estienne’s lead as he demonstrated the steps. 

The dance stopped for a moment while the musicians tuned their instruments for another piece, and Damen took the opportunity to gracefully excuse himself from the circle. He could feel Laurent’s eyes on him from across the garden, and he made his way to where Laurent was standing. It was almost directly under where Laurent’s balcony overlooked the garden, and even standing on the first floor of the patio the spot provided a line of sight through much of the space. Laurent was leaning against the ornate iron-wrought rail that separated the patio from the green space of the lawn. When his eyes met Damen’s across the garden, he looked away. By the time Damen had made it to where Laurent had been standing, Laurent himself had slipped away.

Damen walked toward the more secluded paths he knew Laurent favored by the small creek that had been carved in the middle of the palace garden, searching him out. But when he found Laurent, he stopped without approaching, because Laurent was not alone.

Laurent was seated on one of the lover’s benches next to the creek, which was shaded from the path by the trailing leaves of the willow tree and afforded a romantic view of the water. He sat next to another figure. Damen could make out the back of each of their heads, Laurent’s fair hair and Nicaise’s darker curls, yet they had the same cant of their necks as they sat next to each other on a bench. 

Damen made his way more cautiously toward the bench, slipping into the circle of the willow tree himself by pulling the leaves aside like a green curtain.

“He wasn’t really going to kill me,” Nicaise said. “It was only a trap to lure you back to Arles.”

Laurent made a noncommittal noise.

“And it worked,” said Nicaise. “You came running back to the palace like a dog at mealtime. He was a much better chess player than you.”

“Are those your words or his?” said Laurent.

“I never wanted you to offer for me,” said Nicaise. “It was just part of the plan.”

Laurent turned slightly on the bench, and in doing so, spied Damen out of the corner of his eye. He turned his head slightly further, met Damen’s gaze, and then turned back to look intently at Nicaise, who was still staring out at the water. “I wanted to offer for you,” said Laurent. “I saw what he had done before. I saw how he was with boys that he liked, how easy it was to believe that all of his plans did include you. But I saw what happened later, also, how his eyes wander as you start to grow older, how you begin to ask questions and then realize that perhaps you did not actually want to know the answer.”

“You’re wrong,” said Nicaise.

“You know that I’m not,” said Laurent, his tone quiet and mild. “Remember that for me, it was not just a plan.”

Laurent stood, and rested his hand on Nicaise’s shoulder before he left the boy sitting on the bench and came to stand near Damen closer to the path. Damen held the leaves of the willow curtain out of the way so Laurent could step back on to the path without having to duck his head, and then Laurent waited for him a beat to follow before he began walking back toward the palace. 

They walked for a few moments in silence. 

“He will be quite lovely when he is older,” said Damen, wondering again about Laurent’s interest in Nicaise.

Laurent looked at him sidelong, amused. “I’m not interested in Nicaise that way,” he said.

The path narrowed near a sculpture to be only a few cobblestones wide, and Damen waited for Laurent to round the sculpture first, and then followed. 

“I thought perhaps you were waiting,” said Damen. 

“For what, his voice to break?” said Laurent, raising an eyebrow.

“Until your attention would be more appropriate.”

“I’m not interested in Nicaise,” said Laurent. He trailed his hand along the top of a manicured shrub, a small wave amongst the greenery.

“What are you interested in?” said Damen.

Laurent turned his face from his hand and the shrub to Damen himself. “Do you want me to flatter you with words?” he said, “Or are you truly that dense?”

The intensity of Laurent’s look caught Damen suddenly. He felt something like a fish landed in a man’s net; his heart beat rapidly with the motion of a fish flopping helplessly on the deck of the boat.

“I didn’t--” said Damen, since he was no courtier to trick and seek out flattering words or niceties.

“You really didn’t know,” said Laurent, turning his eyes back down to his hand on the plant. He tore a small leaf off of the plant and let it drop from his fingers down to settle in the middle of a cobblestone on the path.

Damen took in a deep breath. “I,” he said. “Perhaps I did not want to let myself know.”

“I realize that you have a hatred for me and for all things Veretian,” Laurent continued. “I’m not going to --”

But whatever Laurent was planning to say about whatever Laurent was not going to do was lost into the noise of the garden and the faint strains of music, because Damen stepped forward and kissed him.

Laurent was startled, but after a moment he tilted his head up willingly, parted his lips with a hint of interest, and when Damen tipped back to look at him, Laurent was wearing a faint smile and Damen was helpless except to lean in and kiss him again. 

Damen rested his hands on Laurent’s upper arms, he trailed one hand up Laurent’s shoulder to touch warmly upon his neck and the tickle of his hair upon his collar. He wanted to embrace Laurent. He wanted to pull Laurent to him. He wanted to take Laurent back to Laurent’s bedroom where Damen had used to sleep on a pallet on the floor. He wanted to peel him out of his tightly laced Veretian clothing and linger over each span of his skin. He wanted to secret Laurent away from the gardens and the court and all of Arles and Vere so Damen could have him just to himself and they might never be interrupted.

Laurent was wearing a mischievous look; Damen realized he wanted to spend the rest of his life wondering what was behind that look on Laurent’s face.

“What?” said Damen. 

Laurent laughed lightly, and he touched Damen’s cheek gently with the back of one of his hands.. “I was just thinking I wished a bath,” he said.

“A bath?” said Damen, his mind already picturing Laurent’s body against the blue and green of the tile in the royal bath chambers. He imagined running his hands over Laurent’s bare skin in the damp heat of the bathing room; it was almost impossible to imagine that Laurent would let him.

“I might need assistance washing,” said Laurent. “Where ever would I find someone qualified to assist me?” The edge of his mouth was turned up in a smirk.

“It’s so difficult to find good help,” said Damen, leaning in to sneak a kiss again.

Laurent smiled again, and turned, walking back toward the palace. 

Damen watched the graceful way that Laurent moved and realized again that he was going to spend the rest of his life echoing that particular moment. He was going to follow Laurent to the baths; he was going to follow Laurent into the water. The following day he was going to follow Laurent off to Akielos and to meet with Nikandros. He could show Laurent the way the baths in Akielos were heated with steam chambers and aqueducts. Laurent had reclaimed his own position as the king of Vere and was going to stand beside Damen as Damen did the same in his own homeland. He had imagined leaving Vere for Akielos since the minute that he had first arrived, blindfolded and sick on the ship, but he had never imagined it quite like this.

And then, once in Akielos and returned to his position, it was impossible to say what might come. But the thought of the future did not weigh heavy on Damen as he trailed a few steps behind Laurent into the palace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who encouraged me as I went along, and especially to petrichoral for key help with the plot and making some of the ending scenes hundreds of times better! :)


End file.
